Blogging From Guantanamo to My Classroom
From the “15 Minutes of Fame” and the “It Feels Weird Actually Posting About This” Departments comes news that this month’s issue of Teacher Magazine is not only carrying a feature length story about yours truly but has for some insane reason actually decided to put my picture on the cover under the heading “The Blogvangelist.” (Free registration required.) I’m flattered, obviously, and somewhat embarrassed by the attention. (My kids, however, think it’s cool and actually took out the garbage this morning.) Regardless, the story does focus primarily on the work, and includes quotes from such luminaries as Alan November, Darren Kuropatwa, Anne Davis, Sree Sreenivasan, Chris Lehmann, and others.
But the best part, to me, however, is a sidebar that the writer Patrick McCloskey put together after interviewing my former student Meredith Fear and her Pulitzer Prize winning journalist/mentor Scott Higham who worked together in her blog in my class a few years ago. First of all, I didn’t realize that Scott actually gave her feedback in her blog while he was in Guantanamo Bay working on a story about a secret CIA detention facility.
Whoa!
And this quote literally warms my heart:
“For me,” Higham reflects, “the benefit was being able to plug into the mind of a very sharp teenager and connect on a professional level across generational lines. I witnessed the evolution of her thought processes and writing skills as she dealt with feedback. Blogs allow a teacher to literally take their kids out into the world from classrooms anywhere in America. I’d do it again in a heartbeat.”
That’s the type of affirmation we can all share with those we’re taking this message to…
technorati tags:education, learning, teaching, weblogg-ed
14 Comments
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Wow! That’s awesome! Congrats on the article. And thanks for more documentation to prove that blog, wikis and podcasts (oh my!) are a good thing!
Power of Web2.0 and Social Networking…
how cool is this ….. So i just love this story. High school kid in Minnesota makes kitschy video series about the importance of wearing seat belts. Calls himself “Buckle Boy.” Exhibits a certain, um, charm that is, um, endearing…….
Congratulations on the article Will! The pictures of you are great. And even though the title didn’t sit entirely well with you, the article really comes across clearly with your passion turned mission to improve the world of education. The side bar about Meredith and Scott was really powerful. Way to go Will, you deserve the recognition.
Cheers!
Darren
Congratulations Will! I can’t wait to read the article. Thanks for all you are doing to convince people that “blogging” is not something to be afraid of in an educational setting.
Tres cool will,
Now if only we can get you to run for president.
And I got you to come to Wappingers Falls last March for our little regional conference! Now you are on the cover of Teacher Magazine with this really artsy photo on the cover. Very cool - Congratulations! Well deserved!
Linda
Will -
Perfect!!! I have a parents night, the so called “meet the teacher” ritual. I think I will utilize the above quote to emphasize the importance of this new technology. Keep up the great work, and see you at Silver Creek High on the 31st.
Pat
Hey Will!
I love the cover! Congratulations on the great article. And yes, the side bar is something really special! I especially liked the story about Wendy taking you online for the first time! Keep up the good work- as you say, “self-motivated learners and creators, driven by their own passions’ - let’s all keep working to make that a reality!
Best,
Anne
Mr.Richardson, that cover photo is the most epic thing I have ever seen. Congrats on the article! I’m glad to see it came out so well.
So Meredith, did you know he was commenting on your blog from Guantanamo????
I heard your awesome presentation at NECC and I am looking forward to working with this weekend at the Region 4 Retreat. I want to begin to eplore blogging with my students.
I am actually commenting in the wrong place about your article in Edutopia this month “The New face of Learning”
First let me say I really enjoyed the piece,emailed it to several people, and did the
unthinkable printed it out( sorry but you have to know where the audience is and in my school few are online all are in the teachers rooom) and put copies of it in my school’s teacher room. I have also purchased your book for several people in my district.
Quoting from your article
“In this new interactive Web world, I have become a nomadic learner; I graze on knowledge. I find what I need when I need it. There is no linear curriculum to my learning, no formal structure other than the tools I use to connect to the people and sources that point me to what I need to know and learn, the same tools I use to then give back what I have discovered. I have become, at long last, that lifelong learner my teachers always hoped I would become. Unfortunately, it’s about thirty years too late for them to see it.”
“….Most of us now live in a world where, with access, knowledge is abundant, yet we have yet to reconsider our traditional school model, which is based on the obsolete idea that knowledge is scarce”
Wow!
First let me clarify where I am coming from,I have been blogging with my classes for two years(we are a small special education school for for students who have been branded with the disticntion “emotional disabilities” I hate that label). Last year I ran a blog on the November site
http://nlcommunities.com/communities/mbroder/
This year wordpress is my choice.
Let me say as with you it has changed my life as a teacher, but to get back to what you said in your article.
Absolutely kids are “grazers”of knowlede naturally. They are comfortable with a model that puts them in charge of what they want to know. Even inner-city tough kids. I open up and invite the search for knowledge in my tech classes and they just take off.
I have news for you so are adults once they set up a bloglines account and begin reading.
(You taught me and about 600 people to do this at the November conference this past July, I now read 64 people/news venues everyday) Read is a hard word and 64 feeds is a lot, truth is I graze that is what I do, and I find new people to read every day from the ones I read.
Back to my point,( if there is just one) I agree or get your point that knowledge and the acqusition of it is now “open” however, it scares me and intrigues me.
What will those who control education do with this? And believe me in NYC teachers do not control education. There is such a desire to make everything quantifialbe in this NCLB world that the opening of the educational playing field is in direct contrast to this desire to control knowledge.
I think that what in a way it comes down to not only is ” Knoweledge scarce” but knowledge is controlled”"grazing for the knowledge you need and want” is a subversive approach in our present system. Our culture does not encourage open ended exploration, and never has. Just consider how Amercian history has been taught,to perpetuate dogma’s and prejudices. I think your problem/job as the voice of a new connected approach to educations is not only to show educatators the the bionic power of the read/write web, but it revolutionary power as well to finally 200 and something years later to make a real democratized America where citizens of this country finally can and do own the knowledge.
Thank you for everything, Great article and I look forward to our paths crossing again.
[…] Now that my students are all capable of making the blogs work - they can post articles without technical problems and without forgetting their passwords - I’m beginning to push the writing they’re posting. This week, we’re beginning to consider their audiences and purpose, which, in my little dreams I call expectations, I hope will clean their writing of some of the IM chat-isms. But I’m excited by part of what I read in Teacher Magazine’s article about Will Richardson, where Will discusses hooking his blogging students up with professionals. For Richardson’s journalism class, the practicing professionals part was important, but for me, I would simply like to supply my students with readers. If they had a few readers, they couldn’t deny the importance of writing well and making a decent impression through their blogs. No one wants to look like a fool. […]
I saw the article; congrats! I plan to give copies of it to participants in a session I’m doing on using blogs and wikis in the classroom at a state private school conference in November.