Be yourself; Everyone else is already taken.
— Oscar Wilde.
Here, in my first blog I will reflect on one of the focus questions that the members of my ONL group formulated: ”What is, or can a learning blog be?”
I start the exploration by visiting the blogs that ONL recommends on the website. These are referred to as educational blogs. A question that arises is therefore: ”What is an educational blog?”
- Learning with ‘e’s by Steve Wheeler
This blog immediately strikes me as written by a person that is confident that his reflections is catching the interest of a large audience. Already in April 2015 there is post telling us that he has reached more than five million readers. The design of the blog involves reflections posted nearly every other day, and it seems that I could go on scrolling down for ever. In a post from August 21 were he happily explains that his blog is considered the fourth most influental education blog. And yes, Wheeler explains this and that concerning technology and the posts come with links to references and explanations of concepts. The blog is chronically structured with the newest blog posted first. You cannot search by categories. When looking for information about the author I scroll down a menu, but I only find the opportunity to alter the design of the webpage. I am able to search within the page, and there i type ”about”, but it doesn’t direct me to a presentation of Wheeler. Will I learn from this blog? Sure I will, but I can hardly choose what to learn since I cannot navigate and pick what I want or need from a list. The purpose of this blog seems to allow the author to communicate reflections on up to date issues concerning education and technology.
2. Social Media for Learning by Sue Beckingham
This blog looks like an ordinary blog first of all because it has menus, headlines, columns e.tc. When I scroll to the end of the home site, I find categories for me to pick. Thank you, Sue! I find some words about the author and also an aim which is to introduce me to what social media is. Beckingham hopes that ”it will give you an overview of some of the current popular social media tools that can be used for communication, collaboration, curating and creating using a variety of multimedia.” She hence wants to teach me about some useful digital tools. So, I rush to the menu and there I find an introduction to blogs, including a video where Steve Wheeler (yes, the writer of the blog that I commented upon above!) has some tips for the beginner. Beckingham provides the reader with a bunch of tools in the domain of social media and provides the learner with various links, videos that helps any beginner with the ”first aid kit”.
3. The Ed Techie by Martin Weller
This blog is constructed according to my liking. I have the ”about” section and categories. The website is furthermore not over worked, but invites the reader to a ‘calm’ environment. Weller blogs about ”Digital Scholarship, open education and impact of new technologies” in a personal fashion. The small talk is rooted in a balanced approach to technology: it has its promises for education, but should not be embraced without caution. He explains that ”Blogging is ideally suited to academia” and his posts are clearly rooted in a scholarly soil. Therefore, The Ed Techie may suite researchers that want to take part of reflections on the subjects. His followers furhtermore leave interesting comments.
4. Hack Education by Audrey Watters
This blog looks ‘different’. The first page shows the beginning of a post, entitle My Week in Review. If you click on it, you can read the whole text. Below the first blog, there is another My Week in Review, and so it goes with few exceptions. I notice that Watters posts a blog every week. At the moment, Watters is preoccupied with the writing of her book: Teaching Machines, and several posts provide the reader with updates on the writing/publishing process. If you look closely you may find access to selected essays and other writings. The overall impression is that Watters is rather talky (if this is the correct English word). Here is an example that also presents her critical perspective: ”And yet the education/technology industry (press) was wowed by teacher influencers and teacher PD on Instagram, touting the promise for more income via a side-hustle like tutoring rather by structural or institutional agitation. Don’t worry, teachers. Robots won’t replace you, the press repeatedly said. Unsaid: robots will just de-professionalize, outsource, or privatize the work. Or, as the AI makers like to say, robots will make us all work harder (and no doubt, with no unions, cheaper).And yet the education/technology industry (press) was wowed by teacher influencers and teacher PD on Instagram, touting the promise for more income via a side-hustle like tutoring rather by structural or institutional agitation. Don’t worry, teachers. Robots won’t replace you, the press repeatedly said. Unsaid: robots will just de-professionalize, outsource, or privatize the work. Or, as the AI makers like to say, robots will make us all work harder (and no doubt, with no unions, cheaper).” It is not possible to comment on her posts.
5. Online learning and distance education resources by Tony Bates
Bates explains that the blog ”is meant as a resource for students, faculty and academic administrators interested in online learning”. The page allows for navigation between different categories and every post is moreover tagged to provide a way for searching according to your preferences. Under the headline ”Resources”, the reader my find lots of links to articles, institutions and more that may of interest for people into online learning. A lot of the blogs contain chapters from previous books he has written. Comments made on the blogs are neatly displayed in a column of its own. He is currently updating the book Teaching in a Digital Age and the readers are invited to comment on a suggested new chapter on virtual and augmented reality.
6. The corridor of uncertainty by Alastair Creelman
Creelmans blog is ”a place to write my thoughts on developments in e-learning and comments on interesting articles that I read”. The first blog is inspired from the talk by Greta Thunberg at the UN climate summit the other week and is about the responsibility of education to make their students aware of climat issues, but that politicans have to do their job and take on the responsibility for real change. The articles are tagged and you may write any word in the search box and get many related blogs. He recommends articles and I find blogs written by Wheeler and Bates among the most recent suggestions.
Here are some reflections after visiting six blogs. In my view, these blogs really are educational blogs, that is, the word educational refers to the content space which is the same for all six, namely education and technology. However, ONL labels the page learning blog, thus implying that learning blog is the same as an educational blog. Hence, learning blogs reflect upon educational matters. I am a person that try to sort things out, and such a conclusion is unsatisfactory. Learning is learning, and subordinate to education in the same way as the word teaching is, nowadays strikingly absent in the main writings about the theme education and technology.
Another perspective may consider the learning of the writer. My mind goes to Descartes: I blog, therefore I learn. I think that the scenario of topic 1 implies this perspective. By writing down my thoughts, I sort them out, make them visible for myself. It makes sense, I think.
However, if such a blogging takes place within a course, that is when a student blogs because it is a task, then another dimension comes in: the teacher will consider my reflections and will have opinions on it. Furthermore, if the blog is made public, then anyone may have an opinion on my reflections. If I am a young student without much confidence, I would certainly restrict my reflections and make them fit mainstream thinking.
