Digital Literacy & Media

Not Reading…Why?

We’re finding it difficult to keep up with the edblogosphere, and the resulting silence feels strangely appealing. Maybe the answer isn’t trying to read and write more, but focusing on deeper, more meaningful engagement instead of adding to the overload.

So we’re finding it really, really difficult to read much of the edblogloshpere these days. We’ve gotten out of synch…too much traveling. Too much to do at work. Too much of everything.

But here’s the kind of weird thing which is scary at the same time. We’re kind of liking the silence. And we’re not sure if that’s just because we were simply getting overwhelmed or because we were just tiring of the discussion a bit. If it is the latter, that would be an interesting development, we think, one that we’d really want to deconstruct. Are we bored with it? Is it moving beyond us? Is it fruitless? Are we not learning? Is it just too much to take on?

We dunno…

We’ve been thinking seriously about where we want to take this space when our new life starts in a couple of weeks. We’re just feeling like lately it’s become too repetetive, too echo-y. It doesn’t feel fresh. We’ve been lucky to develop a pretty wide readership, but we’re wondering if that’s affecting our work here, pulling it in a direction it doesn’t want to go. It feels like we need to retool somehow. We’re looking for that next step, we think. Blog enlightenment. And we don’t think it’s in writing more or trying harder. We think, as with all enlightenment, it’s about letting go.

But of what?

UPDATE:

Kathy Sierra’s post from yesterday turns out to be extremely, incredibly, wildly relevant and helpful. It’s titled “The Myth of Keeping Up,” and our takeaway is to get focused and figure out how to best use the time we do have to read and write. And this is the one part that really resonated:

Finally, are WE part of the problem? Are we overwhelming our users with documentation? Or are we part of the solution to their info anxiety? We’re the ones that should be helping our users really focus on the things they need at any stage. While we all recognize that we are stressed for time and on info overload, we tend to think our users have all the time in the world to figure it all out (RTFM).

We know she’s writing about a bit of a different context, but we think it’s a great point. We’re very fortunate to have built a pretty wide readership here. The last thing we want to do is add to the deluge. Less reading may lead to less knowing and less writing, but it may also lead to deeper knowing and deeper writing. And that’s really where we want to get, we think.

About the author

Weblogg-ed Team — The Weblogg-ed Team is the collective byline behind our editorial coverage. We write about teaching, learning, and the institutions around them as technology and students keep moving faster than the systems built to serve them. Our work covers classroom practice, edtech and AI tools, online learning, homeschooling, digital literacy, and higher education, written for teachers, school leaders, parents, and lifelong learners who want clearer thinking than the press releases provide.

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