Liz Lawley thinks the new version of Moveable Type will be a lot more teacher friendly.

The announcement about new features in the upcoming MT3.1 release has gotten me excited about revising my courseware for this fall. In particular, the multi-blog option (“A plugin which allows you to include template content from one weblog in any other weblog in your Movable Type install”), the post scheduling, and the improved php/dynamic capability will all make it much easier to create a more robust courseware implementation that doesn’t require nearly so much by-hand duplication of content when creating multiple sections of a course, or new course instances from one quarter/semester to another.

Sounds somewhat like the modules that Bryan Bell has created for Manila in terms of including universal content across a lot of blogs. (Actually, I just had a bit of a lightbulb go off…I can use modules to push information to any sites that have them included in the template. Universal updates…cool! Now why didn’t I think of that before?)

Anyway, any movement toward making blogware easier for teachers is a good thing, and Liz is probably ahead of the pack in terms of her use of MT.
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Barbara points to this collaborative Weblog at ArtsJournal:

CRITICAL CONVERSATION: From July 28-August 7, ArtsJournal is hosting a special topic blog called Critical Conversation and featuring some of America’s best classical music critics. Our bloggers include: Alex Ross (The New Yorker), Kyle Gann (Village Voice), Justin Davidson (Newsday), Anne Midgette (The New York Times), Scott Cantrell (Dallas Morning News), Charles Ward (Houston Chronicle), Wynne Delacoma (Chicago Sun-Times), Andrew Druckenbrod (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette), Kyle MacMillan (Denver Post), John Rockwell (NYT), and John von Rhein (Chicago Tribune). Our topic: whether or not it is still possible for a Big Idea to animate classical music. We invite you to join in. The conversation will inform an August 7-8 Critical Conversations symposium at the Aspen Music Festival and School.

What a cool idea, getting together a group of experts for a short period to discuss a specific topic with reader interaction. That’s a model that could be pretty easily replicated in the K-12 classroom I think. What about a group of astronomers to discuss the stars with students? Or local businessmen to write about community development? Or authors, or musicians, or parents even. Kind of what we did with the online book club. Or…
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