I've Been Seeing Other People

I have to admit that my Bloglines account has been undergoing some changes.  While the total number of feeds I'm reading hasn't changed much (someplace in the range of 90 - 100), the blogs that are on it have changed. I've been deleting edu - blogs. Like any other segment of society, education has its share of people who started a blog but aren't writing anymore. I have had people listed who churn out few posts, not enough to keep me involved, interested, and thinking. I've had people who I just wasn't reading. So I've been carefully and thoughtfully deleting, wondering about the loss of potential information I am now missing out on.

But I've also been adding, and they haven't been education related. My poorly organized Bloglines account has a folder simply called "Interesting." Originally intended to be a few miscellaneous things I couldn't fit anywhere else, this section, and the pure "Technology" folders have been expanding. I find that I'm reading much more widely, trying to understand what is happening in society a bit more closely, trying to see if I can spot patterns of information. I'm trying to get out of the echo chamber and think about how society is changing, what this means for education and for my classroom. I'm so deeply involved with the processes of learning and education, I often lose sight of where schools fit into wider society.

There is absolutely no doubt that continuous learning is one of the most vital enterprises of our ever - changing society. I want to spend some time thinking about that in order to better understand what my classroom needs to look like and be like, in order to better ready my students to live in this society. So I've changed my reading habits. I'm reading more blogs about video and about the web. I'm learning more about the possibilities of virtual worlds such as Second Life. Technological impact on society has been gaining more of my reading time. I've actively searched for blogs written by people thinking deeply in places such as China, India and Singapore to try to gain a larger perspective on the changes these places are undergoing so I will be better able to judge the impact of these changes on North American lives.

This blog has focused this year on blogging, wikis, podcasting, and vlogging in classrooms, but my larger agenda is to better understand how to create an effective learning environment which meets the needs of our time in history. The information tools we've used this year in my classroom have been the main focus of this change, but I also need to better understand content, curriculum design, informatics, programming, scientific development, geographic literacy, game design, etc., etc., etc. A basically endless list.  Education in a constant state of being in beta. This need for a clearer understanding of societal change has been the major driving force behind the change in my reading habits. Hopefully it will allow me to become better at what I do; teach kids.

technorati tags: change, classrooms, information, RSS

Comments

[h]

Clarence, You've given me my quote for the week. There are so many I could have chosen, but I settled on "Education in a constant state of being in beta."
I appreicate the positive spin that gives it. If only somewhere down the line, we'd be reading in Tech Crunch that Yahoo was buying us out for huge amounts of money, instead of that the conservative right has sold us out.

In terms of new reading, I can't remember if you've ever mentioned the blog Creating Passionate Users
http://headrush.typepad.com/creating_passionate_users/
If you haven't read it, give it a look. One post you might find interesting, because you are living it, is her Crash Course in Learning Theory
http://headrush.typepad.com/creating_passionate_users/2006/01/crash_course_in.html

[Vicki Davis]

I love to read Guy Kawasaki and I echo h above, I love Kathy Sierra's blog - creating passionate users.

I also enjoy the Official Google Blog and I love Lifehacker.

Marshall K is also a must read for me.

All of these are non teachers and I love their work. They make my classroom a better place.

However, to say they are non teachers is incorrect because they teach...me.

I agree as a fellow teacher my focus is always on meeting my primary objective...teaching my students.

Good luck! Thank you for a meaningful post. You and I read a lot of the same info.

PS I had put in the HTML code for each of those blogs but it says your blog doesn't allow it. Sorry that there are no links for the blogs above.