Having just said that I’m having trouble finding “best practices,” the AP College English class Weblog at Oak Park & River Forest High School outside of Chicago looks like it’s got some potential. And the teacher, Bernie Heidkamp, has set up Weblogs for his other two sections as well as his American Studies class. (They were blogging the debate last week.) There is some serious critical thinking and writing going on, as evidenced by this post in particular.

I think this is a very easy yet effective way of getting into this. And the teacher(s) has obviously thought it through as evidenced by this “Your Blogging Responsibilities” page. And just why are they using blogs?

1. It allows us to continue conversations we have begun in class and explore issues often with more depth and thoughtfulness – since we will force ourselves to articulate our ideas in writing.

2. It allows us to discuss issues that we have not addressed in class (because of time limits or the particular focus of the units) but that someone thinks is relevant to our study of American culture (in the case of American Studies and American Literature classes) or literature and culture in general (in the case of other classes). It gives you, the students, more control of what we talk about.

3. Since our weblog will be public (people will be able to find it through Google and other search engines and other bloggers and websites can and will link to us), everyone in class will have a public voice and immediately be published writers. This “publicity” offers a wonderful opportunity to have an audience for your ideas and an important responsibility to present ideas that you truly believe in while writing in a mature, confident style.

Ok…I’m feeling better now…
—–

So I had about 90 minutes of true blogging flow this morning, reading the latest in my Bloglines aggregator, clicking on links, Furling interesting posts, and stealing paragraphs here and there and saving them as a Webnote. When I was in the midst of it, it all seemed to connect, the tools working seamlessly together, each with its distinct purpose. I really did get lost in it, which is either a moment of higher understanding of all of this or a sad comment on my geeky existence. There was so much good stuff to read, so much that I wanted to write about and explore further. So much mental exercise at 6:30 in the morning as the sun came up over the soccer field outside my window. It was very Zen.

Now, however, it’s very overwhelming. I’ve got this growing mountain of ideas and snippets of some very smart people, and I’m wondering what to do with it. Why, exactly, am I Furling, Webnoting, blogging my time away? Now that I am able to capture all of this information, what exactly do I do with it?

And another thing…

At yesterday’s workshop, only three of the 20 teachers had even heard of a Weblog when we started. I was pretty amazed. That’s not a slap a the teachers who were there; it’s just that the difference between my online educator blogging world and the reality of the classroom teacher world is becoming more and more acute. Online, things seem to be going in all sorts of directions. In the classroom, well…it’s just a different story. Try as I might, I still have yet to find more than a couple of dozen K-12 teachers who are using Weblogs in ways that can potentially enhance their students’ learning. It just feels like a big disconnect, somehow.

One of the gems that I found this morning was from Darren Cannell who has a pretty interesting post titled “Are we entering a dark age of information?” In it, he paints a picture of the potential changes that these technologies are creating and the lack of recognition by schools.

Too much information.
Students who understand how to navigate the web.
Teachers who do not.
Students who have no one to show them what is good and what is bad.
A system of education in which students and teachers do not connect.

I’m wondering to what extent students are passing their teachers in their ability to manipulate the Internet and information, and to what extent teachers will be willing to learn how to model the skills that students are going to need to manage all of this in effective ways. If I’m struggling, I can’t imagine what it must be like for teachers who are just seeing the landscape for the first time.
—–