Tomorrow we meet with representatives of the sending disctricts for a Social Studies articulation meeting. My department chairman has turned out to be a big proponent of the use of Web logs, and he’s attempting to set up a site to improve communication among the districts. (Btw, the US-Poland project is slated to get underway this week as well.) I mocked up a sample “learning object” that a teacher would post, and got the meta data search up and running. I think if we were able to collect 12-15 or so lessons by the end of the school year we’d be off to a good start.

Admittedly, it has been difficult getting people to post to these types of sites in the past. As much as I beg and plead sometimes, participation at the EdTech and Website Redesign sites is minimal. I’m sure much of it has to do with time and the general overload that most feel here. But I also think that it’s going to take a sea change in work habits for collaborative spaces like these to really take hold. That’s where most of the work is going to have to happen. Right now, it’s all introduction.
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A story in the Phila. Inquirer about Web logs and their use by political candidates.

Yet, today, thanks largely to the Howard Dean phenomenon and other Web-driven developments, the Internet has become such a potent force in national politics that its most vocal boosters are heralding a brave new world of civic engagement, a new era of grassroots Jeffersonian democracy.

I’m going to be interested to see how blogthevote2004.org turns out for just this reason. Not to say that our site will end up being a major forum for young voters. But I am anxious to see if the kids who do use it get more engaged for the simple reason that they are able to contribute to the dialogue in an easy way. If nothing else, Web logs are giving people the ability to feel more connected to the candidates or to the causes, and I think that’s one step in the direction of repairing the sense of disenfranchisement that a lot of people feel. Hopefully that will be the case with this experiment as well.
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iBlog is Apple’s entry into the Web logging world, and we know Microsoft isn’t far behind. They look pretty standard, more MT than anything else. I apologize that I can’t remember who it was, but someone was musing on the effect this will have on other blogging systems out there, specifically Radio. I don’t claim to be as up on MT or TypePad or some of the others as I should be (like I even have time for this space…) but wouldn’t it seem that most primarily single paged Web logging will be under the domains of the big companies out there within the next five years? I know there will always be open source alternatives, but I think for most of the billions of people out there who still don’t even know what a Web log is, Microsoft and Apple will be their first introduction. And you know what that means.

Personally, I’ve been feeling lately like UserLand is missing an opportunity. The more I get my elbows dirty with Manila, the more I like it despite its quirks. I’ve finally gotten to understand that the power of the software sets it apart from most other Web logging apps out there. Thing is, no one else at my school sees it, yet. It’s taken me two years to wrap my brain around just how extensive the effects of a CMS like this could be here. Showing that to others and convincing them of same is no doubt going to be like pulling a cement mixer up a steep hill. Molecules at a time. But we’re all moving in that direction, I think, and it seems like medium sized districts who are looking for a fairly inexpensive way to move operations online, facilitate distance learning, and communicate more effectively with their publics (among other things) would be chomping at the bit to get something like this working.

Dan Mitchell is compiling his ruminations about the use of Web logs in education. Dan was one of the first edubloggers I found and his work at De Anza College has done a lot to inform my own thinking about teacher and student sites and templates and such. For example, in his process of having teachers create and maintain Manila sites he says:

While several of us are aware of the deep underlying power of the Manila weblog environment, we decided at the outset to focus on providing basic skills for our faculty users. In fact, we set a very low basic threshold for success: faculty members should be able to create and maintain at least a single web page that contained important contact information along with some personal information. Virtually everyone met this standard, and most created more sophisticated sites with multiple pages and posted course information, etc.

I’m wondering if that might be the very least we could ask of our teachers as well, the creation and upkeep of a single page of contact information with some additional background info. Teachers who are so inclined could add a resume, or discuss best practices, their philosophy or more. Just a thought…