The future of the blogging platform...

While following offshoot links from linked articles (!), I ran across a couple of interesting articles from over a year ago. One is a NY Times article cleverly titled "Blogs Falling in an Empty Forest" and the other, referencing that article, is a Guardian blog entry about the future of blogging. There is some relevant insight in those articles as well as some of the comments that follow those articles.

One comment compares the state of blogging to the Gartner 'hype cycle'. I would agree with the comment that, for various reasons, blogging as a concept may have fallen into the Trough of Disillusionment. With this blog, I certainly never sought book deals or notoriety that some bloggers seem to have been seeking. This is one premise you'll find stated in the linked articles. I do agree, though, that blogging is time-consuming if done well. In some circles, it has likely been replaced with easier and more immediate tools such as Facebook and Twitter.

To me, that comparison is somewhat of an apple-to-orange comparison. When using Twitter, it's difficult to expound on anything too meaningful in 140 characters or less. Granted, when time is of the essence and you simply want to share an article you read, a tweet makes sense (unlike a forwarded email with an entire article attached, which I get my share of). For the Facebook crowd, I'm not sure how the blog comparison works, but I will say that a Facebook status update I make will likely have more readers than this blog post may have. It's apples v. oranges, though, because the purposes are different.

Blogging, to me, is a chance to share thoughts on a given topic. My topic of choice, in this case, happens to be my job. For many, the topic of choice is a hobby of theirs. Your readers - should they happen to exist - are naturally going to be those who share a common interest. Blogs specific to an interest should naturally lead to a group of people using that mechanism to share insight on that interest. It would be difficult to share many details in 140-character bites via tweets and responses. Facebook is more general in nature and, while you could certainly create a Facebook group for a particular interest, it doesn't have the same look and feel as a blog post.

I use Twitter and Facebook on occasion and it's obvious that I haven't been blogging as much lately. However, I think my reasons are due to work and personal obligations eating into my time rather than the blog being replaced by some other medium. Also, as previously stated, it requires some time and effort. I'll turn right around and tweet a link to this and it will certainly take much less time than this post took. If you have to choose between a retweet, a comment on this post or a blog entry of your own, which would you choose and why?

To complete the hype cycle thought, I feel like the blog will remain in some form and that the 'Plateau of Productivity' will be seen as common interests are found and expounded upon by writers who choose to take the time to write about what is important to them.

Pew Report on Cell Phones and American Adults

While browsing around, I ran across one of the many interesting reports from the Pew Internet & American Life Project. This one is entitled "Cell Phones and American Adults" and, as is typically the case, there is quite a bit of interesting data that I can't analyze quickly enough (and isn't THAT what the Internet has become?) Just some random stats of interest from the report:

* 82% of American adults own a cell phone
* Adults who text send/receive about 10/day on average. Teens who text average 50/day
* African-Americans and English-speaking Hispanics are slightly more likely to own a phone than whites and they are also more frequent and intense users of the phone
* About 2/3 (65%) sleep with the phone nearby. It's over 90% for the 18-29 demographic
* (Only) 58% make voice calls on a cell phone for work-related purposes
* 86% think it's rude when someone regularly interrupts a conversation or meeting to check on their cell phone
* 31% of teens send more than 100 texts/day
* 39% of adults use the cell phone to entertain themselves when bored. 69% of teens do
* About 79% reported having a desktop or laptop computer - that's the same or slightly less than the percentage having a cell phone

I guess this is where I should add some level of in-depth analysis of this data. That's tough, because I can only really speak from my own perspective and it differs in a few areas. I can't imagine NOT using my cell phone for work-related purposes. I suppose the number could be artificially low due to the ages or work status of those surveyed. It's also hard for me to imagine that there are as many or more cell phone owners than computer owners, but that simply goes to show how quickly that market has grown and how necessary the cell phone is thought to be.

I confess that I'm quite surprised that a higher percentage of minorities own and use a cell phone (as compared to the white population). I see this as a potential wake-up call to those of us in education. Admittedly, I haven't traditionally been a big fan of cell phone use as part of the educational process. However, if this technology is helping to close the 'digital divide', how can we NOT embrace the use of this technology to help close achievement gaps?! There are some very interesting trends in minority use of technology brought up in this article that mirror these thoughts.

When I see the number of texts that our teens send, I'm reminder of something that David Couch brings up on occasion. I've heard him compare the depth of text conversations to the phenomenon of CB radios when they were first introduced. Many people wanted to talk on the CB but, if you read a transcript of the conversations taking place, most were fairly useless in nature. The cell phone data reveals that many text simply to say hello or chat - particularly with teens - so I can only assume that the nature of a printout of the texting conversations between many teens wouldn't necessarily be groundbreaking thought.

The data shows that most of us have a cell phone. Is there a way to use this device educationally? Should it change the way we teach? If virtually every teacher has a cell phone, is THAT how he/she should communicate with parents (rather than a phone in the school or classroom?)

"The Cloud" and 21st Century Learning

I probably have too many thoughts going on at once to make a sensible blog entry, but I've got to get with the program and keep the cobwebs dusted off of this site. An article was brought to my attention by a teammate. The article concerned student learning and cloud computing and the potential that's out there. Some of that article talks about advantages of students in a university setting creating their own 'cloud' of learning tools rather than relying on school-provided resources. It made me think of the possibilities we have in the K-12 space and, honestly, I took a detour and began to think more broadly about "21st Century Skills" and spent some time looking at the framework established by the Partnership for 21st Century Skills.

As I look through the details of those framework definitions, I see mention of core content subject knowledge accompanied by a huge number of necessary 'other' skills lumped into "Learning and Innovation", "Life and Career" and "Information, Media and Technology". These are the desired student outcomes and I'll rattle off several of these:

Think Creatively and Work Creatively with Others
Implement Innovations
Reason Effectively
Use Systems Thinking
Make Judgments and Decisions
Solve Problems
Communicate Clearly
Collaborate with Others
Access, Evaluate, Use and Manage Information
Analyze Media and Create Media Products
Apply Technology Effectively
Adapt to Change
Manage Goals and Time
Work Independently and Be Self-Directed Learners
Interact Effectively with Others
Manage Projects
Guide and Lead Others

I tired out and skipped a few here and there, but you get the idea. The design mentions several necessary support systems such as properly integrated standards and assessments, PD, learning environment and curriculum and instruction. Keep in mind that we're just now adopting common core standards for English and math. If we've struggled for years to adopt common standards in a few of the core subjects, how will we ever be able to properly assess how well a student applies technology effectively or reasons effectively. These skills are necessary but are also very subjective and, I think, would be difficult at best to properly assess.

Touching on the cloud-based computing article, I believe there are many readily available tools to help with some of the 21st century tasks noted above. I manage goals and time with a calendar application within my email client which, with any luck, I use to communicate clearly and collaborate with others. I can also collaborate with others using web-based productivity software from any number of providers. I can at least try to guide and lead others with blog posts such as this. And so on...

I could develop a lengthy list of conundrums we find ourselves in, only one of which being "how can teachers allow students to be self-directed learners when they are so hard-pressed to cover a list of content standards within the specified number of days/hours of instruction?" Technology alone isn't the answer, but it is a tool that can help get us there if properly leveraged. Some students are honing their 21st century skills on their own, using modern tools such as smartphones and any number of collaborative web resources. Some are undoubtedly using it for the wrong purposes, but I look forward to the day when we collectively allow more of this collaboration to take place as part of the classroom experience. With any luck, the benefits gained will far outweigh the issues that might arise.