What strikes me as fascinating is the amount of time that is involved in keeping a vibrant blog, as well as the users in cyberspace who spend their time reading, commenting, and linking to the posts.  While I see the value in keeping up with a few spunky blogs, I also see the time-suck effect.  I also find myself skipping down the page, skimming for words and ideas that jump out at me, instead of reading every word.  I guess this is also how I read a newspaper.  I think it is definitely a skill to learn how to read blogs so that you get the most out of them.  As a language arts teacher, I see this as an important 21st century literacy skill, and as a technology educator, I see this skill as vital in preparing our children for the world they will enter in just a few years.  I love it that blogs are dynamic, interactive, and offer an authentic audience.  This is so powerful for us all–someone is out there listening!  Now, I want to get my RSS set up to improve on the time-suck!

I was inspired by the Students 2.0 blog, where a group of high school students sharply point out the inadequacies of the face of education today, in the posting “Amateur Education“.  It makes me sad to see that our current education system is failing in transforming students into the life-long learners we all value as educators.  The idea that we are selecting the content, deciding what kids should learn, and programming them to want to succeed based on grades and assessments we see as relevant. This posting is in concert with the blog post from Wandering Ink in “How to Prevent Another Leonardo da Vinci“.  Here, blogger Kris Bradburn magnifies what schools are doing to squash the little creative da Vincis sitting in our classrooms.  The high school students in the Amateur Education posting would be refreshed to hear Bradburn’s approach.  Interestingly enough, commentors on this posting suggest that we turn to Web 2.0 tools to combat the dull traditional approach, allowing students to be more interactive and create content.  But, as many commentors pointed out, can Web 2.0 truly combat the politics of education?  The national and local testing, the agendas of policital parties, and more?  What will it take to truly reform education for the better, providing opportunities for students to truly be prepared for jobs that do not exist today and to offer creative thinking and constructive opportunities for all those little da Vincis?