To Blog or Not Debate

Will Richardson has started an interesting conversation, To Blog or Not to Blog, which has inspired others. I've found two, by Bud Hunt and Barbara Ganley, particularly interesting.

Bud discusses how often when we write we talk about the positive examples and neglect or downplay the things that do not work out well. I think this is a very valid point, especially by those of us who tend to get excited and like to tell others about the good, we sometimes forget to tell about the struggle it took us to get to the good. I find it this way even in general teaching to children. The science and history we talk about our normally the successes. Even though I have a told students quotes about how often famous people have failed before gaining success, we rarely discuss it during normal discussion. This could be a whole entry in itself but my main understanding of what Bud is saying and what I've seen happen is that there are times when blogging won't work out for some students and for some teachers/classes as a whole.

Barbara's piece hits the topic on even broader terms, discussing how we need to engage students in a learning community that allows them to try various forms of learning and media styles. Sure, some students will not do well blogging, just as some don't do well writing an essay but that doesn't mean we give up teaching the essay or blogging. However, we must also teach other ways of learning/interacting with information and conveying that information-digital storytelling, music, powerpoints, wikis, picture books, etc.

As our class gets more involved in digital learning over the next couple weeks and we prepare to write our own blogs, I'll try to chronicle both the successes and failures as Bud suggests and also the ways I try to encourage students in using multiple methods of learning and sharing.