David

I wish to thank Nate and Rovy for the conversation that they have been having about the digital divide and the participation or lack thereof in the blogosphere of many distingushed educators. I have been following this conversation from Rovy’s side, but I finally did what I should have been doing the entire time and went out to find Nate’s blog for his full thoughts – what a treat. The conversation, which I already appreciated, was even better and more crucial than I had realized. I have been having a very similar conversation with Andy Gibbons, who is one of those distinguished non-participants. One of the reasons for this digital divide, I believe, is that the conversation within the blogosphere thus far has been two dimentional – it has been more focused on the technological aspects of improving education and has not had much depth as far as broader theories of learning and instruction are concerned. This is not conducive to bringing in those who are not interested in the technology for technology’s sake. What we need is not just a critical mass, but a crtical mass of variety in the ideas being discussed though the medium in question. That is where it will begin to gain the validity and prestige that will bring a wider range of people in. So far there is no vision among the non-bloggers about how fundamentally different the world is as a result of these new communication tools. I believe that the critical mass of topical variety is the lack of critical mass that we must address. Thanks again to Nate and Rovy for this conversation, but even more thanks to both of them for having a broader range of substance on their own sites than I generally find among educational bloggers.

I have noticed a number of posts lately in reaction to the grand entrance of the “Guru of the Obvious” into the blogosphere. I have to admit that I am slightly jealous of someone so brazen as to blatantly try to goad all of the most popular bloggers into linking to his blahg to increase his ranking. I have also noticed a few other practices – such as not allowing comments. I think I know why he has set his blahg up that way – comments do not help ratings but trackbacks do. He may claim that this is an attempt to avoid comment spam but I personally receive 20 times as much trackback spam as comment spam. I would not be put off by such tactics if he had anything at all to say, but he doesn’t. In response to a question related to his lack of content he said “I have been so busy fielding lucrative consulting offers and fending off media requests that I simply do not have the time to write everything I would like today.” What he failed to say was that he had been to busy to write anything of any substance. Courtesy of his “no comments” policy I refuse to trackback to the blahg of Leon Lighips, but if you are reading this post the chances are pretty good that you have already read posts linking to the “guru” from those he is planning to take down. Too bad he has nothing with wich to replace them.

I am teaching a class on using technology to enhance learning and we have been having a discussion about the importance of teaching higher order thinking skills. When I read Rovy’s post: Internet, Information Flow, and Implications for Education it occurred ot me that the importance of higher-order thinking skills has grown because of the changes brought on by emerging technologies such as the internet. We have talked in class about teaching these skills with technology versus teaching these skills without technology, but I just realized that part of the reason that the skills are so essential today is because of technology.