Weblogg-Ed

Note: As of 8/9/02, Weblogg-Ed has moved to www.weblogg-ed.com. Please update your links!

"The survivors will not be defined by the lives they have led until now but by the lives that they will lead from now on." --Michael Berenbaum

"Blogs are the biggest mass writing experiment ever undertaken." --J. Lawless

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:: Busy week...does life ever slow down? Wendy in Ca. peddling books, digital and print, to Gateway, Toshiba, Compaq, Fujitsu and others. Returning tonight with lots of interest and potential business. Working on my portfolio, class magazines, media curriculum, finishing touches on yearbook, and more. No wonder I haven't had the chance to get in here. Might be good on one hand...perspective is necessary, right? And it seems like others have slowed down their posts as well. Maybe the onset of spring? Next week...we'll see. posted by Will Richardson 10:14 AM Link	Friday, April 26, 2002
:: Cool! A mention in an article by Jay on weblogs in "Learning Circuits". Why do I get this feeling that there's just might be a future in this??? posted by Will Richardson 12:45 PM Link	Friday, April 19, 2002
:: It's a beautiful, sunny, 85-degree-day, and I should be outside, I know, instead of sitting here avoiding all the work I have to do: portfolio, weblog responses, etc. I'm feeling a bit burnt since prepping for my Media class is taking most of my morning, then teaching it all afternoon. I'm struggling with the weblog idea in Media, partly because I'm not in a computer lab per se, but partly because I don't really have the time to set it up. Still, I could use it short term later in the quarter. As it is, I bet only about 25% of the kids have even visited the homepage, but at least I'm keeping it up as a lesson/homework site...that'll help me next time. Made some preliminary notes for the piece on J weblogs that I want to write. (If anyone has any suggestions, please feel free...) Just some big buckets that I want to make sure to cover: Professional journalists like Gillmor, Sullivan, the Poynter Org. that are already using weblogs as a form of journalism. Mention the community journalism weblog from a few days previous as an example of what kids might do in their schools. (I should also talk to Xana about doing something like that online here. Tony?) Some "research" about weblogs: history, forms, stats on use (Blogger has 500,000 weblogs but only about 100,000 that are actively updated) etc. as well as some examples of school-related weblogs (still slim pickin's). The community building/collaborative work aspects as evidenced by my J1 class weblog and my some of my J2 personal weblogs. Notetaking, observation, process analysis aspects as evidenced by my J2 personal weblogs; beat potential as in my J1 personal weblogs; potential for expert interaction (Middlebury); Editing and response as per J2 class weblog (though admittedly these are not great examples); newspaper construction potential (as with altmuslim.com). How to set up weblogs, with discussions of software (Blogger, Diaryland, Manilla), price, technical needs, etc. I was happy to see that the one article I found really didn't do justice to the potential here (read: I can do better.) Now it's just a question of finding the time! posted by Will Richardson 12:14 PM Link
:: Another piece in the International Herald Tribune about weblogs and journalism. I need to remember to include samples of how journalists are already using these. Gillmor, Poynter, others. posted by Will Richardson 10:14 AM Link	Thursday, April 18, 2002
:: Link to an article I found on Weblogs in education and literacy. Need to contact the author. Also, a story at MSNBC.com about business types "flocking" to weblogs. Dan Gillmor is quoted as saying "If you think of traditional journalism as a lecture, Gillmor said, Weblogs include elements of a seminar and conversation. “The division that has existed between the journalist and the audience is blurring, and that’s a good thing." I'll need to try to contact him as well. Obviously, things are breaking, and I need to get to my piece, soon! posted by Will Richardson 9:22 AM Link
:: Andrew Sullivan on weblogs. "This is democratic journalism at its purest. Eventually, you can envision a world in which most successful writers will use this medium as a form of self-declared independence." Wow. But I still wonder just how much effect they'll have in the end. And while it is democracy in it's truest sense to publish freely, I'm not sure the effect on democracy if one-sided, agenda-ridden weblogs replace Journalism with a capital J. Then again, the harder you look at J, the more biased and corporate agenda driven it is anyway. posted by Will Richardson 5:58 AM Link
:: Yep, still here. Another interesting use of weblog as journalism, this time on the community level. posted by Will Richardson 4:10 AM Link	Wednesday, April 17, 2002
:: Interesting article on Weblogs as Journalism. Here's a quote: "But weblogs are powerful for exactly the opposite reasons: they allow opinionated bloggers to post to the web without an editor. Depending on your point of view, this lack of objectivity and peer-review is either weblogs' greatest strength or their greatest weakness." I agree that gives a raw power to weblogs that more traditional forms lack, but I'm still not sure whether that's a good or bad thing. If weblogs do grow into a favorite flavor of news consumption, we're going to have to do a much better job of training our kids how to digest them. I think in the long run, they will create more polarization of ideas and opinions, which will inevitably will dilute the objectivity of real journalism. Another excerpt: "After all, you can always filter out bias... but it's impossible to filter out misinformation." That, I think, is only true if you are a sophisticated enough consumer of information. I wouldn't trust the majority of our soon to be graduates to be able to discriminate between fact and opinion consistently, especially when the messages are being created by professional spinners with very focused agendas (Case in point the Israeli/Palestinian conflict). They haven't been taught how to do it. And bias is so ubiquitous today in the vast majority of media that my kids come into contact with. It's the status quo, which makes it much more difficult for them to recognize it. posted by Will Richardson 1:38 PM Link	Friday, April 12, 2002
:: Blog chat up and running...very cool. posted by Will Richardson 10:40 AM Link
:: Whew...end of the term...yearbook 99.987% finished...new classes Monday. I think I can finally see my way back here on a regular basis next week. I'm getting very psyched about having some time to reflect on all of these weblogs. I think I have some good data from the kids which I'll post at some point. I really want to take some time to analyze, think, plan, and act for next year. I would love to work with one of the Expos teachers to set up something like this in his/her classroom. And I may have one other blogger this quarter if I can get him set up. And, of course, then there is my new Media weblog which will be officially up and running on Monday. I just have not had the time to think through the group weblog idea, but I still want to get to it, I'm sure. Oh Man! Check this out...an online chat for your weblog! How cool is that? Can you even imagine the possiblities there? Kids posting their writing then having chats about it on their weblogs? Or professionals interacting in real time with students as the look at content on the page. Too freaking cool!!! A couple of places to check out and add to the list from David Weinberger: Small Pieces Loosely Joined (his new book) and his website. posted by Will Richardson 3:56 AM Link
:: Back from a few days in D.C. with a lot to catch up on...Glad to see some other edubloggers are back at it, and Terry seems like he's thinking thoughts similar to mine about learning communities...and Sarah seems to be back to some regular posting which is good. Now if only I could get back in there with them. Good news is that yearbook is pretty much finished after this week, finals are on Th and Fri, new classes start Monday, so the end is in sight, thankfully. I'll need to focus my attention to my portfolio first, then my weblog studies/article after that, but I'm writing as I go, and I think it should go pretty smoothly when I finally get to it. Some links to note: J.D. writes about "The Daily Me" and what the consequences are of a personalized news society. Ironic in that I've just started to use that feature at the NYT. It does have some interesting applications, and is wholly relevant to the ongoing discussion about media and it's influence. If we allow ourselves to only be exposed to those topics that interest us from those sources we agree with, the ramifications are potentially huge, both positively and negatively. With as much media as we are inundated with, it's only natural, I think, for consumers to opt for filters. "Personalization is about funneling in, not screening out. It's about increasing the signal-to-noise ratio." J.D. says in support of the trend. Interesting to think about. posted by Will Richardson 9:20 AM Link	Tuesday, April 09, 2002
:: A couple of links before I hit the road for a few days: "Welcome to the world of Borg Journalism. Resistance is futile: journalism is being assimilated." "...the collective act of weblogging is producing a basic form of journalism..." posted by Will Richardson 5:39 PM Link	Wednesday, April 03, 2002
:: Some observations as I start to assess the personal and class blogs...J1...They really didn't do as well as I'd hoped with their beats and I think it's because it may have gotten lost in the mix a bit. I still think it's a great way to get kids to explore issues in depth, as Jess did in one of the few really good ones. (Although I get the feeling that most of that is just because of the kind of kid she is.) And actually Jillian and Liza did a pretty solid job with theirs as well. But most were acceptable at best. I don't think I highlighted them enough to the kids, the way in which Barbara does each week as she summarizes and links the best/most interesting of the class work. (Time is the problem for me once again.) Still, as I enter the Media class, I know I need to have the group weblogs more accessible and readable by others in the classes, and that I need to do more of the filtering of content for them. I need to do more pointing to excellence and thoughtfulness. On the other hand, my J1 Class Weblog surpassed my expectations. They had nothing but thoughtful exhanges on a variety of topics, and I think they learned something valuable about sourcing and linking to information. We had almost 200 posts in March alone...that's an average of about nine per student. Three kids posted 15 times, almost once a school day. I think as a last class weblog assignment, I'm going to have them post about their experiences with it. The J2 Class Weblog, as I've said before, was just totally different. Very random posts, some personal exchanges, some depth but a lot of less than thought provoking stuff. And they did it almost totally during class, a product of the looser structure to the class. Their personal weblogs, by contrast, were more interesting and useful. They used them as notebooks, and I think it helped to keep things together for them. Still, I wish there were some more personal responses in them. It just be the nature of the course (I think creative writers would probably adopt more strongly) or my lack of nurturing. (I did pretty much turn them loose with all of this.) Also, I need to make sure that I can get into those group weblogs and respond and interact with them. posted by Will Richardson 7:50 AM Link	Tuesday, April 02, 2002
:: Been thinking about how to use weblogs with my Media classes next quarter (which starts in two weeks) and need to get some ideas down: 1. I still plan use a weblog as a class homepage with daily updates and links. 2. Wondering if perhaps I could create collaborative weblogs for smaller groups, perhaps divide them by area of interest (television, movies, ads, Internet, magazines, news, music, law, etc), and perhaps connect kids from both sections (that would be a cool idea). Have them find and discuss topics relevant to their interest, maybe even create some sort of competition among them. Could develop criteria for the types of posts...could even require them to contact some media types to collaborate with them (look how easy it was to get mentors in the web class), use the Writing About the Arts model from Middlebury (she has small group discussions going on with "experts")...maybe try to find some of these experts beforehand? Say if I had 8 kids per weblog? Six weblogs total? Six topics? Or could I have duplicates (might get some stepping on each other's toes that way)? First task would be to search the web for relevant and useful links about their topics and post. Could teach one kid in each group to make them permanent with the code. Then find articles, exchange ideas, reactions, news, etc. Should come up with a list of focus questions. Assess how? 3. Not sure about individual weblogs...maybe diaryland accounts for posting work? Even more pressing (and possibly more important) is I need to figure out what information I want back from my current kids about their weblog experience. Specifically, I want to know how many of them ended up just doing it for a grade, how many genuinely liked it, would they have liked more participation from me, what kinds of applications can they see for weblogs if any, etc. I always wonder about the reliability of such requests since I know some kids are just negative in general about school and technology. Still, I think there were at least a third of my students who got something out of this. Is that enough? And how do I make it more interesting/valuable to them? That's the biggest question. As with anything else in teaching, I think the answer lies in my own preparation. I think my media blogs COULD be more effective with the addition of professionals, but that kind of a project is going to depend on how much effort I put into constructing it, from the idea, to getting the participants together, to focusing questions for discussion, to evaluating the results. Would be cool though. Time to start looking around. posted by Will Richardson 11:46 AM Link	Monday, April 01, 2002
:: Another cool idea from the folks at Middlebury: a collaborative weblog for staff. I wonder how this would work on a high school level. Just seems so much more time intensive down here. Not that professors aren't working, but it feels like there's more flexibility to it all. I rarely see any of my colleagues with much more than a minute to spare. For a collaborative weblog to work with us, I think it would have to be moderated and would have to include some type of notification feature. Might be worth it to see how it would work with small pieces of the department, say Expos Comp teachers, or Freshman English teachers. Still, they would have to be motivated and reminded to use them, at least at this point. (Maybe after I do a few workshops it will be easy to get them to adopt ;) posted by Will Richardson 11:21 AM Link

Links
Weblog Resources:
Weblogs Compendium*
Weblogs for Educators
Chris Lehmann
pMachine
Antville
UpSaid
History of Weblogs
Pitas (Blog Host)
Weblog Power
Pitas (Blog Host)
Moveable Type(Blog Host)
Weblogs as News
GreyMatter (Blog Host)
Weblogger(Blog Host)
Xanga(Blog Host)
Onclave
Weblog Articles
Swiss Army Website
Weblog Awards
Weblog Madness
Bloggar
Tinderbox
Targeted Serendipity

Weblogs I Read:
k-12 blogWrite
Pat Delaney
Sarah Lohnes
Joe Luft
Sebastian Fiedler
Seb's SOL Project
Terry ElLiot
David Walker
Educare
Greg Hanek
Ray Schroeder
Brian Fitzgerald
Chris Ashley
Stephen Downes
Lloyd Nebres
Schoolblogs.com
Peter Ford
SITech.
Rebecca's Pocket
Media Minded
Corante
Josh Marshall
Keep Trying
J.D. Lasica
Poynter Media Blog
News Trolls
Microcontent
Mark Bernstein
Kairosnews
Jay Cross

Weblogs in Schools/Best Practices:
Delano High School
Karen McComas
Barbara Ganley
Student Weblogs
Lincoln Pub. Schools
Beacon School
Dreamcatcher
Brit. Sch. of Amst.
Adv. Int. Class.
Coop. Reading Proj.
Kern County
Lloyd Nebres
SFEd Access
Centenary (La.)
I-Search (Pat)
Richard Stockton C
Emerson College
U. of Iowa
New School
Redwood City Library
Teachers LiveJournal
Internet Journalism
Esperero Canyon
EP
Dan Mitchell

Weblogs/Journalism:
Disaster Weblogs
Dan Bricklin
Weblogs & News
Blogging as J
Cyberjournalist
Media Weblogs
Glenn Fleischman
E&P Weblog Bandwagon
Journal. Pivot Points
Medill Sch. of J.
Weblogs & News

Weblogs/Teaching:
Online Discussions
Online Classroom
Weblogs as Community

Weblogs/Literature:
Dreamcatcher

Manila Related:
My Caxton Manila
Pat's Newspaper
Themes
Manila Home
Pat on Discussions
U. of S. Aust.
Hector's Tutorial
Bryan Bell
Ken Dow
RSC Space
Kern
Lincoln Tutorials

©2001/2 Will Richardson