3: Taking Risks

In reading this chapter, nothing really stood out to me until the end section talking about changing templates, putting this in, blog rolling that, and I finally realized what this entire chapter was saying. Take Risks! Their chosen title of 'Getting Started' is much softer and p.c., but honestly this blogging option and all the possibilities that go with it are endless. At first its a leap to even post your information, but then you find out that its interesting and maybe even fun. To take complete ownership of the blog however, responsibilities and all, could lead to some very personalized and interesting sites that reflect the writer and what they want to portray to the public. This is a chance for students to take a few risks, that aren't all that risky at all.

Ch. 2- In Blogging's Defense

There are two things that stuck out to me in this chapter. One was the inherent purpose of writing, and bringing that to the students, and second was bringing a purpose to reading and writing in other content areas. After all, that is what researchers do right? They write about it and publish their works. In elementary especially, there is an underlying question for writing, yes they do it because they have to, but blogging seems like it would give them purpose and a goal that they are purely responsible for and others will see their work all over the world. They are subjecting themselves to criticism from people they may not even know. Its a purposeful, but gutsy move to create a blog.

Purposefully merging writing, reading, and every other content seems to have been a struggle for elementary. We want science to be hands on, we want gym to be outside, math to be manipulative, but in all our grand desires, at least I would never want to force a child to write about physical education, or read books about math. It doesn't sound interesting to me, so why would it be to an 8 year old? Blogging may have a great idea going here, that where we see academic tracked education taking over, regardless of the needs or desires of the student, this gives them the opportunity to delve more into their subject matter. If a student who is really into automotive reconstruction, writes about it in a blog, gets a few responses and creates a network of people with those same interests and goals, this student may be on his way to the career of his dreams. I realize this is an extremely idealistic way of working the blog, but it could happen.

Nothing is "Read Only" Anymore

So, who had any idea that the fastest growing age group in techno-savvyness are 2-5 year olds? My goodness, but it makes sense, and is good in that they are getting some learning in prior to the school instruction, as well as setting a foundation of computer use in general. But all this does lead me to wonder.. If this is the largest growing age group that has access and interaction with technology, why are we still so worried that our school age children do not have access to their own computers? The claim seems rather silly after reading the anticipated statistic.

Another point of interest about the now read/write web was that it has changed how children think. Richardson says their minds are "parallel, not sequential." I understand sequential, in terms of how to think and organize information, but parallel.. I'm still hazy. I understand that they have multiple connections, and one thought or topic directly leads to the next (which isn't so far off my own thinking, and I think is beneficial and best practice in teaching- to connect information to students' background knowledge), but the term "parallel" doesn't make much sense to me.