Class Blogmeisters have lately been discussing on their mailing list about the barriers they face in their efforts to get more teachers involved in blogging. Most stories involve a handful of teachers giving it a try, and most of them dropping it after one or two assignments. Complaints include the time it takes to review the student blog entries, lack of hardware, and so on — all legitimate barriers that are bigger than any one good teacher. ..and I would be the first to say that blogging isn’t for every teacher. It is not the pinnacle of technology integration, nor is it a fad. It’s just a continuing evolution of tools that empower students to become one with their learning, and not just a container for their learning. That’s my opinion.
But one person said something the other day that got me to thinking. I know, for a fact, that the statement he reported is not characteristic to his experiences as an educator, but it bares repeating just the same. He said that a student replied, when asked if she would enjoy blogging in her class, “If it does not improve my grade, I am not doing it.”
This statement bounced me over to some ideas that I have been exploring around various similarities between flat world issues and new forces driving economic growth, and flat classroom issues and new forces that are required to drive academic growth. You can re-read my introduction to Flat Classroom Learning Engines here, but the bottom line is that when teachers are no longer so clearly above their students in skill and knowledge (at least from the perspective of the students), then the gravity of a symbolic grading system begins to lose it’s force. A new source of energy is needed to drive the classroom as a learning engine.
Classroom blogging is a very flat endeavor. A teacher, who does not understand this, may use it explicitly as a writing tool, giving a writing assignment, and then grading the work based on writing technique. This would not surprise most students who are accustomed to the gravity forces behind teaching from the hill.
But if the assignment is less about the technology of writing, and more about our inalienable need to communicate, involving as much the reading and responding as the composing and editing, then the work flattens out into a classroom endeavor that engages both learner and teacher. The boundaries between the two begin to blur. This is a good thing.
As students become empowered by their own curiosity and need to communicate and influence, and a cultivated orientation to the future and grounding in heritage, then teachers can come down from a hill, that is all but transparent to their students, and participate in a learning engine.
2¢ Worth.
Borya, “Image of a Hill.” Borya’s Photos. 18 Feb 2006. 19 Apr 2006 <http://flickr.com/photos/barthelomaus/101120685/>.
I agree – as a teacher that tries to do this as much as possible. One area that seems to concern many teachers is “How do you grade that!?” I personally have students self-evaluate a lot and spend class time having students share their work and thinking and learning with the class and then evaluate that (many balk at this because it takes “Class time” they feel they can’t give up). Rubrics help. This is new and teachers I train are predominately not comfortable with it. This is an area I’m working on now since I’m preparing to do a 1:1 laptop program with 6 year old Key Lime iBooks next year with my class.
If you are a product of the “Old Story” type of education, and our students still tend to be a product of the old story and their parents are definitely a product of that style – This tends to make them suspicious of new ways – ways they don’t know – aren’t sure of. I think this means we need to make that evaluative piece one of the strongest parts right from the get-go so the whole program isn’t watered down by suspicion.
Learning is messy!
Brian
“Working, Breathing, Reproducible, Intriguing Models”
http://learningismessy.com/blog/?p=51
David – your post and Wes’s and afew others inspired me to write this post.
Brian