As I worked through this activity, I experienced both one of the greatest benefits and the one of the greatest problems I need to overcome as a participant in a web 2.0 world. The posts, links and comments were thought-provoking, engaging and useful. I also thoroughly enjoyed all that I learned through the blogs I visited. I love reading blogs, both inside and outside the education “beltway.” I am often left with that disorienting feeling you get working on an important project in a great library as you pick your head up from a book and wonder where all the time went. The problem is, it also took me a LONG time to get through the assignment.
The distractibility factor is HUGE in a non-linear, hypertext world! This particular task, for example, took me countless hours to “complete” because I am forever distracted by things both inside and outside of my intended purpose. For example, reading Dan’s post on homework, I am lured into reading his supplementary documents and then the comments on them so that I take a huge amount of time getting the original article read. On the upside, I learned some very interesting things. Ironically, though, I do not feel “finished.” Perhaps this is related to something Chris Betcher’s discussed in his blog post on digital natives and immigrants. Since we often move onto other things that catch our interest when we are working on something that requires linear, methodical work, we are sometimes left with uncompleted tasks. Following directions is about as linear as it gets. If we can’t work through linear processes, we can’t figure out how to set up a video game like the kid in Chris’ post. On the other hand, in a linear world, we do not have the benefits of divergent thinking. In a web 2.0 environment, how do we determine when enough is enough? When do we stop and move on? I only have a finite amount of time in the day, and my mind wanders, in both productive and unproductive ways. This activity brought into focus the need I have to develop a better discipline or practice as a reader.
Stylistically, I love the informal nature of writing in a blog environment. Word processing revolutionized the writing experience for me with the easy ability to correct and revise drafts; a web 2.0 environment extends this to the next level by making it possible to revise and add even AFTER “publishing.” For example, I have revised the two initial posts I made to this new blog 3 or 4 times since originally publishing them. This can be a MAJOR help for kids and adults who fear the blank page and have trouble committing to a final draft. Blogging also blurs the distinction between “authors” and readers” in amazing and productive ways. The back-and-forth between writers and readers in the blogs I read was very interesting and illustrate how authors are able to reiterate points to clarify, extend arguments to incorporate feedback and questions from readers, and readers themselves become writers for future readers to learn from.
Last night, my family watched a film that captures the blogging and traditional publishing beautifully. “Julie and Julia” is a story about a young woman who blogs about Julia Child. The film, set in the mid-1950s and 2002, creates a wonderful juxtaposition between the two worlds of publishing. Julia Child’s efforts to get her book published are arduous and involve years of revision, visiting publishers and using carbon paper, sending notes across the Atlantic. On the other hand, we have Julie, a young woman who fashioned herself a writer but who had been discouraged by publishers unable to finish her first novel. As a result, we find her at the start of the film in an unfulfilling job searching for meaning. She creates a blog which becomes quite popular. She is ultimately was profiled in the New York Times, offered a book contract, a film deal, and ultimately read by Julia Child herself.
I can immediately identify several important take-aways from this week’s assignment that will find their way into my workweek next week either in my own planning or conversations with colleagues.
- Try using constraints to structure writing assignments rather than requirements. One of the best assignments I ever had as a writer was in graduate school where I was required every week to write a précis on a book that could be no longer than one page. We had to cover all of the salient aspects of the book including the author’s thesis, evidence used, etc. The document was copied and shared with the entire class. There was a public audience who NEEDED my work – it was to be used by them in the course and beyond. It taught me to be precise and succinct in my writing. This teacher is no doubt using web 2.0 tools to meet these goals at this point, but this was in the very early days of the internet and wikis and blogs were not part of his tool kit.
- Use blogging to engage emerging readers and writers in the classroom and beyond. I am about to begin teaching a 5th and 6th grade book group and will find some way to let the conversations and writing assignments about our book spill out of our class periods and into a blog environment.
- Use podcasts and voice threads to enhance the way that kids can reflect on their learning in SSR and beyond.
Now, enough already! It’s time to move on.
Tags: blogging, efficiency, homework, podcast, time
