Isn't It Ironic?

2/03/2006 11:20:00 pm

Today was the first day of the new semester. The old blogs are staying up but I took down the chatboxes. It felt like I was vandalizing the blogs -- didn't feel good. Next week the chatboxes go live on the new blogs, after we've had a chance to talk about the ethics of blogging. Strange feeling. I put them there but it doesn't "feel" like they're mine to take away. Of course, they are; it just doesn't feel that way.

My classes did projects last semester. Three students came to pick up their marked work. I found one of them (88%) in the trash can in the hallway. That got me thinking ... if their work had been digital there would have been no reason to throw it out. But would it have had greater value to them?

I've done two blogshops this week. (More about them later.) In both workshops I emphasized that when kids do their work on blogs and engage an authentic, global audience they often extend their work beyond the class in which it was created. I sighted the examples of Chris Burnette's kids at The Clem and a recent example in my class where a student researched and posted work after the class had ended, while he was studing for exams, in order to respond to a commenter from Australia .... then I found that project in the trash. Isn't it ironic? Don't you think?

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3 comments

  1. Hey Darren,

    Looks like there's a mid-semester revelation meme going around. We have to get away from all that paper, huh? Thanks for adding to the list of stories coming out about the value of blogs.
    Best,

    Will

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  2. The project may have ended in the trash for any number of reasons, i.e., Mom wouldn't put it on the frig anyway, but the knowledge gained remains, to be summoned at will when it's needed.

    And I'm working out a couple weird spots in that sentence diagram...

    Al

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  3. Anonymous11/2/06 17:35

    Thank you Will, you were the first person I heard talk about their classes going paperless because of blogs. ;-)

    And of course you're right Al. I'm know this particular student learned something from that assignment. He told me so and I saw it in the work he produced afterwards. I was just musing, perhaps not so clearly, whether or not students might value the work they create more if it became part of a knowledge network that they knew others would benefit from.

    And don't worry about the sentence diagram. ;-) I was just glad to give the little help I did. Let me know if I can help more. :-)

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