This Podcasting thing has really piqued my interest for now, especially since I was actually able to figure out how to do one without too much sweat. I even got the RSS feed for any future Podcasts up and running via FeedBurner thanks to an e-mail from Dave Gilbert (who by the way has a class blog up and running…check out the “Study Guide Blogs” in the right hand column.) This just keeps on getting more and more fun.

“Every tool should have a way to publish.”

So I’ve started listening to Podcasts as a part of my multitasking life, and there is some good stuff out there. (Adam Curry’s presentation at Bloggercon III is downloading as I write this.) And as today’s EnGadget Podcast was playing this morning, one of the hosts said “Every tool should have a way to publish.” I basically stopped in my tracks. Now how cool would that be? Publish right to your blog or to a classroom site with one click in Word or Powerpoint or Photoshop. Or send the latest movie of your kid winning a trophy in his first BMX race to Grandma via a click to RSS feed in iMovie. Or…

And the best part of this all is that this content creation stuff just keeps getting easier to do. I think I babbled on about this in my Podcast yesterday, but the potential of the read/write Web is just going to keep growing as the barriers to access keep getting lower and lower. And while I’ve been writing and thinking and talking a lot about the whole digital natives and immigrants thing lately, what I’m realizing is that gap may actually be able to close more quickly and more easily than I’ve thought. At some point, even the teacher-immigrants are going to be able to do all of this. I mean only a couple of years ago, most of these technologies were WAY out of reach for most people. Now, even my seven year old gets it.

That’s cause for optimism, and excitement. The more people thinking and experimenting and doing, the more great ideas that will follow. The more great ideas, the more people will be willing to think and experiment and do.
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Now this is a trend I’d like to see continue:

Datacasting, radio frequency identification (RFID) chips, student web logs (blogs), and intelligent essay graders are among a dozen technologies likely to emerge as must-have solutions in the nation’s schools, according to a report unveiled Nov. 3 by the Washington, D.C.-based Consortium for School Networking (CoSN).

CoSN names blogs as one of the “Hot Technologies for K-12 Schools” but doesn’t go so far as saying they’ll redefine education as we know it (which is, of course, what will happen.) In fact, they seem to be plugging blogs more as communication tools rather than learning tools.

Rolfes also touched on the growing importance of comprehensive student information systems used to track and monitor student progress, as well as the use of blogs as an increasingly popular tool for building stronger school communities–spurring much-needed communication among students, parents, and educators.

Regardless, I’ll take it. It’s official. Blogs are “hot.”
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