Dangerously Irrelevant

NECC 2008 - If we don't like NECC Unplugged, we can change it

Jeff Utecht said:

I’m worried these type of get out the tools and play sessions where we are all learning and teaching will be forced out of the Blogger’s Cafe. They are unplanned, unscripted, great discussions around tools, ideas, and just plain old good fun.

Vinnie Vrotny said:

I believe that there is a place for NECC Unplugged and people being able to have quick shares. Bur I do believe that the scheduled nature of this venture, while being created for all of the right reasons, is keeping those who may be late to the party, the ability to share.

I guess I am advocating for a rallying call to arms, a reclaiming of the Blogger’s cafe space. Like Travis, Crockett, and Bowie, and the other Texans, many whose statues are in the hallway right outside of the Blogger’s Cafe,  I am willing to defend the turf from the invasion and instrusion in order to allow for those, who like me, just want a place for informal learning and reflection. Anyone want to join?

My thoughts

1. Many of us enjoyed the conversations on Saturday, even with the boom mikes and camera crews.
2. I’m glad that Jeff and others ‘voted with their feet’ and found spaces and times where their conference needs could be met. I know that I’ve had a blast interacting with Jeff, Vinnie, and others in our informal settings.
3. I thought the Blogger’s Cafe today was fabulous. I don’t know what NECC Unplugged is going to do that atmosphere, but we can always decide as a group to dump it or move it if need be. I liked your [Jeff’s] note that we could’ve taken better control of Edubloggercon but didn’t. If we need it, we have a second chance on Monday and/or Tuesday! [left as a comment on Jeff’s blog]

In other words, if NECC Unplugged isn’t working for us, we don’t have to see it to its conclusion. We can adapt on the fly. Isn’t that one of our strengths as a group?

One final note: A lot of people in the Blogger’s Cafe today weren’t interacting with anyone. They were typing away or simply resting and watching. I’m guessing that many weren’t even bloggers but were simply conference attendees who found an open seat. We have to be cognizant of this too. Although Vinnie and Jeff don’t fall into this camp, there may be folks who prefer the more structured approach of NECC Unplugged instead of a more free-for-all conversation.

NECC 2008 - SIGTC Forum

I attended the SIGTC Forum, run by Ferdi Serim, on Sunday for about an hour. SIGTC is ISTE’s special interest group for technology coordinators. Two things from the session that troubled me…

1. No recognition of principals as instructional leaders

Ferdi outlined five different roles that needed to be involved in discussions about teaching and learning:

• Guide (teacher leader) – knows about designing learning experiences; has daily experience with children
• Scholar (librarian / media specialist) – knows about research, organizing knowledge
• Hard Hat (technical specialist) – knows about hardware, software, and networks
• Pilot (principal) – knows about managing people, schedules, and budgets
• Wizard (technology / curriculum coordinator) – knows about managing systems and processes; at district level

Notice the emphasis on the managerial roles of principals. Nary a mention of the instructional leadership responsibilities of building-level leaders. Very disappointing.

2. The equity trap

There was some discussion about digital equity. Specifically, there seemed to be a fair amount of agreement in the group that – when it comes to digital technologies or whatever – if we don’t have enough for everybody, we can’t do it at all because of the complaints from the folks that don’t receive it.

How are we ever going to move forward if this is the mentality of our school organizations?

Other notes from the session

Cisco white paper: Equipping every learner for the 21st century

21st century pedagogy to teach 21st century skills which is enabled by technology and supported by adapted system reform

The goal is to move from automation to facilitation to transformation

Desired educational technology outcomes will occur only if they are supported by the entire system

Gartner’s hype cycle

1. Technology trigger
2. Peak of inflated expectations
3. Trough of disillusionment
4. Slope of enlightment
5. Plateau of productivity

Sources of information on emerging technologies

• Horizon Report and Horizon Report wiki
• ISTE Emerging Technologies Idea Library

NECC 2008 - My favorite moment

No matter what else may happen at this NECC conference, I can say with no hesitation whatsoever that my favorite moment will be - after all of our Did You Know? stuff together – finally meeting Karl Fisch.

NECC 2008 - Edubloggercon

I haven’t been to NECC in years so I was really jazzed to be able to come this year to San Antonio. I came in with no agenda; my plan was to simply soak it all in at Edubloggercon. I think I did a good job of that.

On Saturday I met a TON of people – old blogging friends, famous blogging friends, new blogging friends – the whole works. It was great to finally meet some people with whom I’ve interacted regularly. It was equally as fun interacting with new folks that I’d never met before. I now have a bunch of new blogging buddies. I appreciated everyone who went out of their way to come say hello. Folks have been very kind and gracious here.

Many people were Tweeting, blogging, etc. yesterday. I didn’t even touch my laptop until the end of the day. Too many conversations!

My favorite moments of Edubloggercon

• Putting faces with blogs/names
• Meeting a boatload of new, interesting people
• Our conversation about Here Comes Everybody (I probably talked too much…)
• Our conversation about the importance of leadership

Some interesting posts about Saturday

• EdubloggerCon and my need for Beta Time
• Growing pains at NECC’s EduBloggerCon 08
• Edubloggercon’s not an unconference: here’s why
• EdubloggerCon 2008
• Bowling Alone vs. Here Comes Everybody...
• Live blogging EBC 2008 – Part 2
• Podcast 260: Edubloggercon 2008…

I don’t share many of the concerns that others expressed. Although Pearson’s filming was a bit intrusive at times, it didn’t bother me so much, even when I was facilitating. Mostly I just had a great time. I think Vinnie’s got it right - growing pains that we’ll have to work through for next year (when Edubloggercon’s even bigger!)…

Some Edubloggercon pictures from my NECC Flickr set

Ed tech quarantine?

[cross-posted at the TechLearning blog]

This is a picture of the Mobile Quarantine Facility built by NASA for astronauts returning from the Moon. It’s basically a modified Airstream trailer. The idea was to isolate the astronauts until it was determined that they didn’t have ‘moon germs.’ Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins stayed in this quarantine trailer for 65 hours after their return to Earth (Welcome back, heroes. Get in this trailer!).

Of course my pathetic brain saw this and immediately started thinking about educational technology. How sad is that?!

This MQF (gotta love those government acronyms!) got me thinking about whether we technology early adopters need a self-imposed moratorium on talking about new technology tools, at least in certain settings. One of the most common refrains heard from teachers or administrators who listen to us talk or blog about all of these new cool tools is “Why do I care about this as an educator?” In our eagerness to share our nearly-palpable glee and excitement, we often struggle to adequately answer the “So what?” question in ways that are substantive and meaningful to the average teacher or administrator.

So when a new tool comes out – Twitter, Diigo, whatever – maybe we should hold off for a bit before we start blabbing to educators who don’t live as close to the ed tech edge as we do. Maybe we should voluntarily follow a process that looks something like this:

I believe that an emphasis on pilot testing, experimentation, and identification of both mainstream educator use(s) and optimal training mechanisms before introduction to other educators often would help us quite a bit. Instead of turning off the very educators that we want using many of these tools, some time spent in the ed tech quarantine might go a long way toward facilitating our overall goal of greater technology adoption in K-12 classrooms.

I don’t know if I’ve gotten the quarantine process exactly right. And of course many of you already do some version of this. But I think this is a concept that generally should be kept closer to the forefront of our brains. What do you think?

Calling all bloggers! - Leadership Day 2008

A year ago I wrote:

Many of our school leaders (principals, superintendents, central office administrators) need help when it comes to digital technologies. A lot of help, to be honest. As I’ve noted again and again on this blog, most school administrators don’t know

• what it means to prepare students for the 21st century;
• how to recognize, evaluate, and facilitate effective technology usage by students and teachers;
• what appropriate technology support structures (budget, staffing, infrastructure) look like or how to implement them;
• how to utilize modern technologies to facilitate communication with internal and external stakeholders;
• the ways in which learning technologies can improve student learning outcomes;
• how to utilize technology systems to make their organizations more efficient and effective;
• and so on…

Administrators’ lack of knowledge is not entirely their fault. Most of them didn’t grow up with these technologies. Many are not using digital tools on a regular basis. Few have received training from their employers or their university preparation programs on how to use, think about, or be a leader regarding digital technologies.

So… let’s help them out.

In response to that post, on July 4, 2007 – American Independence Day – a number of you helped me celebrate independent (and hopefully innovative) thinking and leadership by blogging about effective school technology leadership:

• The superb posts from last year’s participants

A year later our leaders still need help, of course. So I am putting out a new call for people to participate in Leadership Day 2008.

Guidelines

On July 4, 2008, blog about whatever you like related to effective school technology leadership: successes, challenges, reflections, needs. Write a letter to the administrators in your area. Post a top ten list. Make a podcast or a video. Highlight a local success or challenge. Recommend some readings. Do an interview of a successful technology leader. Respond to some of the questions below or make up your own. Whatever strikes you. Please tag your post with these Technorati tags:

leadershipday2008, schooltechleadership

and/or link back to this post. If you don’t have a blog, comment on someone else’s post and/or send your thoughts to me and I will post them for you. I will do a summary afterward of what folks wrote and talked about [bloggers, this means some new readers probably will head your direction!].

Some prompts to spark your thinking

• What do effective K-12 technology leaders do? What actions and behaviors can you point to that make them effective leaders in the area of technology?
• Do administrators have to be technology-savvy themselves in order to be effective technology leaders in their organizations?
• What are some tangible, concrete, realistic steps that can be taken to move administrators forward? Given the unrelenting pressures that they face and their ever-increasing time demands, what are some things that administrators can do to become more knowledgeable and skilled in the area of technology leadership?
• Perhaps using the NETS-A as a starting point, what are the absolutely critical skills or abilities that administrators need to be effective technology leaders?
• What is a technology tool that would be extremely useful for a busy administrator (i.e., one he / she probably isn’t using now)?
• What should busy administrators be reading (or watching)?

A badge for your blog or web site

[click on image for larger version]

Please join us for this important day because, I promise you, if the leaders don’t get it, it isn’t going to happen.

From literacy to digiracy

I ran across an interesting article, From Literacy to Digiracy, in The Economist (hat tip to Angela Maiers). Here’s the money quote:

For anyone under the age of 20, the world being experienced is one where the internet has always existed, and where everyone who matters is only a click, speed dial or text message away. “Tomorrow’s adults,” says Mr. Federman, “live in a world of ubiquitous connectivity and pervasive proximity.” Their direct experience of the world is wholly different from yours or mine.

So, no surprise that when we incarcerate teenagers of today in traditional classroom settings, they react with predictable disinterest and flunk their literacy tests. They are skilled in making sense not of a body of known content, but of contexts that are continually changing.

I love the use of the word incarcerate. It sums up so well the listless, bored, apathetic students that are prevalent in all too many of today’s high school classrooms. As others have noted, it’s awfully difficult to be a passive information consumer once you’ve had the opportunity to be an active content producer.

Could be a good article to share with administrators!

Top 50 Edublogs? - Follow-up

Every time I make a list of the ‘top’ edublogs (as measured by Technorati ranking), it seems that I also end up writing a follow-up post. For example, I wrote Linked after my last list almost a year ago. Here are a few thoughts about the conversation that has ensued regarding this year’s list…

Academics’ brains are weird

As Sir Ken Robinson said, professors’ bodies are basically transportation for our heads [which is probably why my brain’s in a lot better shape than the rest of me].

I like to play with numbers and ideas. I don’t know why so many people get upset about a simple list. For me it’s about trying to wrap my head around the edublogosphere as a phenomenon. How does it work? If you want to spread an idea, what’s the best way to do so? What valuable contributions can it make? And so on. No harm or self-aggrandizement intended. I’m just thinking in public.

Different strokes for different folks

For every person that thinks the list is interesting, another thinks it’s ‘one of the more inconsequential things [he] had seen in a long time.’ That’s cool. Given my previous point, I don’t mind being ‘libeled.’ I understand what Dan Meyer meant and thought Darren Draper’s comment 3 was accurate too. I did think Bill Fitzgerald’s comment 4 was perhaps a little uncharitable but that’s okay. Each of us finds value in different things.

Imputing intent

Lots of people are more than willing to impute intent to others despite having never met them, spoken with them, or otherwise interacted with them other than maybe having read a few blog posts. This occurs across the blogosphere and, of course, in other expressive media as well. One of humanity’s less-admirable traits…

Thesis + antithesis = synthesis

I really liked Ben Wildeboer’s post on the recent disagreement between Dan Meyer and Darren Draper. Well said, Ben. Mindelei’s got it right too. One of the most useful skills taught in law school is how to disagree without taking it personally.

Subject-matter teacher blogs

As Alfred Thompson said, we need – or at least need to find/identify – more subject-matter teacher blogs. Over time I’d like to collect more subject-matter blogs at the Moving Forward wiki so that we can show educators how other teachers in THEIR field are using blogs productively. Over the past few months I’ve put out calls for good elementary classroom blogs and good special education blogs. It’s time to do another call…

Make your own list

As I said in my post, make your own list! Call it Blogs you should be reading or Blogs that will blow your mind or Great blogs no one knows about or whatever. One of the best things about making my list is the new blogs that I come across, either in the comments or from the links back to my blog. It’s great to come across new, interesting voices. Send me your list. I’d love to see it and, if you so desire, also would be happy to publicize it!

Mini-golf and learning

Whack! Whack! Whack!

That’s my 4-year-old playing mini-golf. He discovered the joys of the game this spring in Florida.

Whack! Whack! Whack!

He doesn’t care what his score is. He is unconcerned about what others think. All he knows is that if he hits the ball enough times in roughly the right direction, eventually it’s going in the hole.

Whack! Whack! Whack!

We encourage him after every stroke: Good job! Try again! You’re getting closer! His ear-to-ear grin shows his joy. His gradually-declining totals show that he’s improving.

Whack! Whack! Whack!

We don’t have to be brilliant to be successful. But we do have to be persistent and unafraid. When do we lose this?

Whack! Whack! Whack!

As my 4-year-old gets older, he’ll get better at learning from his mistakes. But I hope that he always retains his lack of fear and his willingness to persist. Because the world is his oyster if he does.

How do I increase our group blog's visibility?

I got this e-mail last week from a media company (and, no, you probably don’t know who it is):

[We have] an outstanding group blog. I'd like to get more people to read it because the thinking is so good. What would you recommend I do to increase visibility for this blog?

Here was my response:

1. Have a central RSS feed for the blogs rather than a separate one for each. Right now it’s not really a group blog, is it? Archive posts by BOTH time and author.
2. Get the attention of the hubs and superhubs. How do you do that? By linking to them and by writing about content that will be interesting enough for them to remark upon and link back to...
3. Use your print media to help drive traffic to the central blog.
4. Cultivate a loyal group of otaku. Grow it over time by feeding their needs. Read Meatball Sundae if you haven’t yet done so. Also see Seth Godin’s presentation at TED.
5. Rinse and repeat. Often.
6. Be patient.
7. Advertise on my blog.  ;)   [okay, Will Richardson’s blog]

I also should have said:

• Have a core set of Technorati tags that are used with every post. Add others that are post-specific.
• Make it easy for people to bookmark and share posts. Include links for e-mail, Digg, StumbleUpon, del.icio.us, etc. with every post.
• Use FeedBurner or some other system to make it super easy to subscribe to the central RSS feed as well each author's feed. Allow people to receive posts via e-mail.
• Post new content frequently so that people have a reason to keep returning.
• Do a Google search on 'increase blog traffic.' There are lots of ideas out there...

Anything you would add?

What I get to do every day

[click on image for larger version]

105 (CASTLE summer book club update)

What would happen if you expected that 15 to 25 people would be interested in your online summer book club and 105 showed up instead? I don't know but we're going to find out starting tomorrow!

A fine line

There's a fine line between being a public intellectual and just being a pundit. On many days I'm not sure on which side of the line I'm walking...

DetentionSlip.org, please stop the comment spam!

Dear DetentionSlip.org,

I like your blog. I’m a regular subscriber, appreciate your work, and will use your site numerous times for my school law class. But would you please, please stop the comment spam?

On Wednesday you left this comment:

You should have mentioned DetentionSlip.org they are ranked 10 on Alltop, just won Best Education Blog of the Year, and are read by thousands of teachers daily! http://detentionslip.org

On April 25 you left this comment (which I deleted):

Check out http://detentionslip.org to see why public schools are failing.

And I’ve deleted others in the past. It’s very clear that you’re not contributing to our conversations. You’re just trying to get people to come to your site. In April I even sent you a polite e-mail asking you to stop:

Hi. I really like your site and I also appreciate your desire to publicize it. However, you’re not really adding anything of value to www.dangerouslyirrelevant.org with your comments. To be honest, right now you’re violating blogosphere etiquette and you’re bordering on being a comment spammer. I don’t want to block you but I will if need be. Please feel free to comment, but please add to the discussion, not just try to redirect readers to your site. Thanks.

But the comment spam continues. And it’s not just me. Here’s your comment on Teaching in the 408:

Check out http://detentionslip.org for all the latest headlines in education. It's one of the leading sources for breaking news in our public schools.

And here’s your comment on ASCD Inservice:

This story is mentioned on http://detentionslip.org It's one of the leading sources for crazy news in public education.

And here’s your comment on The Homeroom:

Students have more to worry about than lunch trays at school. Check out DetentionSlip.org as a resource for all the crazy stories in public education from around the country.

And here’s your comment on Learn Me Good:

http://detentionslip.org is the only thing people are talking about.

And here’s your comment on Perez Hilton:

DETENTIONSLIP.ORG!!! DETENTIONSLIP.ORG!!! DETENTIONSLIP.ORG!!!

And here are your comments on The Huffington Post:

This story was featured on http://detentionslip.org! It seems schools across the country are doing everything they can to save money. Check out the site for more weird stories like this one.

I've read stories on http://detentionslip.org about high school kids that have contests during lunch to see who can chug the most energy drinks. They always end up in the hospital!

I read a story on http://detentionslip.org about a mother who brought loaded guns to a school conference!

Check out http://detentionslip.org for stories about school teacher drunk in class and caught with coke in school!

Check out stories about teens and sex scandals in public schools at http://detentionslip.org.

(and half a dozen more)

Not to mention your similar comments at The Fischbowl and High School Confidential and Teen Zone News and NYC Students Blog. And at Automatic Merchandiser Magazine and the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools and the Las Vegas Sun and NJ.com and Newsweek. And so on…

Your Technorati authority is 21, which means that in the past six months you haven’t received even one inbound link per week [so, no, I shouldn’t have included you on the list]. While you may be getting a number of visitors to your site, you’re not getting much word of mouth. And the primary reason, I would venture to guess, is your inconsiderate and indiscriminate commenting. You’re angering the very people you want to be sending traffic your way.

So congratulations on your blogging award. Keep up the good work on your own blog. But please add some value to my blog or go away.

Thank you.

Can we get a list of 'non-ed tech classroom teacher blogs?'

Laura said:

There are a lot of Ed Tech blogs and they don't appeal to the average teacher who is not a tech junkie. Would you consider doing a "Top 10 Classroom Blogs" list?

Ian said:

I would like to see a list of the most prolific/popular/useful classroom teacher blogs. Does such a thing exist?

I'm sturggling with these questions because I’m not sure how we’d come up with a list of ‘non-ed tech classroom teacher blogs.’ Because some classroom teachers also blog all the time about ed tech. And some blog about ed tech a lot. And some blog about ed tech a little. And some not at all. What’s the dividing line? 70%? 50%? 30%? 10%?

And what about consultants or university faculty members or others who blog about pedagogy generally? They’re not writing about specific classrooms or specific schools. Do they count?

The Internet defies bounded categorization…

[that said, go through the list of 50 and see who you think makes your cut!]

Echo chamber redux

Below is my comment to Justin Bathon's latest post. Mosey on over to his absolutely excellent school law blog and let him know what you think...

Some questions for you, Justin:

A. Why wouldn't you expect educational technologists to be the first group of educators to dive into the use of social media and other digital technologies? Why wouldn't you expect early adopters to be early adopters and later adopters to be, well, later adopters?

B. What's the difference between a 'community' and an 'echo chamber?' Do you consider Manchester United fans or Lionel Trains enthusiasts or Trekkies to be 'echo chambers?'

C. Why wouldn't you expect entry into any new environment to be intimidating?

D. Why wouldn't you expect any large, complex, self-organizing network - including the edublogosphere - to have a classic long-tail distribution, where a few have the majority of the attention and the many have less of the attention (although still valuable things to contribute)?

A couple of other thoughts:

1. You say that "Goal #1" of educational technology advocates [is] "the spreading of education technology knowledge to all k-12 educators which will help students learn." That's probably fair, although I'd say it's preparing kids for the 21st century (rather than the 19th). But your wording works. But then you go on about Twittering and blogging, which are just a couple of tools in educational technologists' arsenals. There are numerous pathways to achieving the goal that you state and educational technologists are taking all of them. So don't stereotype unfairly. Yes, those tools are popular. No, they're neither the only path nor the end goal (and few would tell you otherwise).

2. I don't speak for the ed tech field. I don't want that burden and refuse that responsibility. I do recognize that it's a harsh world out there and, in the end, no one really cares about new entrants into the blogosphere unless they add value (as perceived by others, not the new entrant). That said, the educational blogger community is one of the most generous, embracing, welcoming groups I have experienced. Time and time again people volunteer their energy, expertise, and precious time to help each other. That holds true up and down the 'authority' spectrum. So it's not that we "expect new bloggers to come to [us]." It's just that in an attention economy we all only have so much time - to write, to help, to read. Don't fault people for not having enough time to serve the world at large. This is the way the online world works. Wishing otherwise isn't going to change that reality (and, of course, the physical world works the same way). And, just for the record, a number of us try very hard to find, recognize, and highlight new voices. To be fair you should acknowledge that too rather than claiming - without any large-scale (or any at all?) evidence - that there are edubloggers who are reluctant to promote others' blogs because they're worried that they'll be crowded out of the attention economy.

Methinks that you paint with too broad a brush, my friend...

Top 50 P-12 Edublogs? - June 2008

[cross-posted at the TechLearning blog]

Many of you know that I occasionally try to wrap my head around various aspects of the education blogosphere. In the past I’ve written about hubs and superhubs. I’ve also sometimes attempted to identify and quantify some of the most popular edublogs:

• Top edublogs? (January 2007)
• Top edublogs - August 2007

Below is my latest attempt. I made a few changes from last time, which I describe after the table. Authority and rank are from Technorati as of June 2. Clicking on each blog name will take you to its Technorati page.

	Blog Name	2008 Authority	2008 Rank
1*	apophenia	1,256	1,880
2	Weblogg-ed	897	3,222
3	Joanne Jacobs	798	3,848
4	Stephen's Web	708	4,581
5*	The Panda's Thumb	563	6,314
6	2 Cents Worth	559	6,364
7	Cool Cat Teacher Blog	550	6,527
8	Moving At the Speed of Creativity	452	8,585
9	Ewan McIntosh's edu.blogs.com	434	9,073
10	Students 2.0	415	9,601
11	Dangerously Irrelevant	413	9,650
12	The Fischbowl	402	9,999
13	Larry Ferlazzo's Websites Of The Day…	292	15,222
14	Beyond School	281	16,003
15	EdTechTalk	255	18,132
16	The Thinking Stick	251	18,485
17*	Millard Fillmore's Bathtub	247	18,889
18	CogDogBlog	243	19,288
19	Angela Maiers	241	19,497
20	Ideas and Thoughts from an EdTech	233	20,369
21	Techlearning blog	231	20,603
22	elearnspace	231	20,603
23	dy/dan	223	21,531
24	Around the Corner	219	22,034
25	Practical Theory	211	23,110
26	Open Thinking & Digital Pedagogy	197	25,258
27	Steve Hargadon	194	25,760
28	Half an Hour	187	27,002
29	k12 Online Conference	180	28,355
30	Mobile Technology in TAFE	179	28,551
31	blog of proximal development	171	30,308
32	HeyJude	168	30,991
33	Blue Skunk	164	31,997
34	The Education Wonks	164	31,997
35	Drape's Takes	162	32,533
36	Always Learning	162	52,728
37*	The Learning Circuits Blog	157	33,890
38	Remote Access	152	35,296
39	PBS Teachers . Learning.now	151	35,621
40	Eduwonkette	150	35,920
41	So You Want To Teach?	149	58,157
42	Eduwonk	148	36,614
43	Teach42	147	36,964
44	History Is Elementary	145	37,670
45	LeaderTalk	144	38,026
46	Infinite Thinking Machine	137	40,556
47	Creating Lifelong Learners	133	42,160
48	AssortedStuff	131	42,997
49	Connectivism Blog	128	44,360
50	think:lab	122	47,149
51	O’DonnellWeb	121	47,646
52	iterating toward openness	119	48,680
53	Teaching Generation Z	119	48,680
54	Generation YES Blog	112	52,751

Information about the table

• This time I only included blogs that predominantly post about P-12 education. No higher education blogs. No blogs that are mostly about training, software tools, or other topics with an occasional P-12–related post. No education news channels that happen to have an RSS feed. Just ‘pure’ P-12 blogs. I was on the fence about four blogs on the chart; those are marked with an asterisk. I included blogs 51 to 54 in case you think those four should not have been included.
• I gave up monitoring the several thousand blogs on my previous list. There were just too many to catalog and also too many newcomers. There are over 100,000 edublogs!
• I feel fairly confident about the accuracy of this list. I considered listing the top 100 but was not as confident about blogs 70 to 100 because I kept finding new ones in that range.
• If I missed you, I’m sorry. Please let me know for next time. If you don’t like or disagree with my selection criteria, feel free to make your own list. It would be interesting to compare yours with this one.
• The very notion of what constitutes a ‘top’ edublog is very personal and individual (see, e.g., posts by Stephen Downes and Peter Rock as well as the numerous comments regarding my last two attempts). Also, Technorati has a number of issues, but no one has yet suggested a more viable alternative. There are many, many great blogs not on this list. While a number of people are finding value in the blogs in this table, some excellent writing is occurring on blogs with lower authority. Read and write blogs for your own reasons rather than worrying about the numbers.

Other lists of top edublogs

Other attempts have been made to catalog the top edublogs. Of note are the following:

• Guy Kawasaki’s Alltop Education
• Aseem Badshah’s Live Mocha list

Some stats on Alltop

Only 19 of the top 50 blogs in the chart above are on Alltop Education. Interestingly, I also discovered that at least 9 of the blogs on Alltop Education have an authority of less than 26, meaning that they have less than one inbound link per week.

Blogs with big gains in authority

Take heart, bloggers who want more readers / links! As the chart below shows, a number of the blogs on this list had large gains in authority over the past 11 months. Some of the top blogs (including Students 2.0, Angela Maiers, and Eduwonkette) didn’t even exist a year ago.

Final thoughts

As always, please let me know if you have any thoughts or reactions regarding this post. I am deeply honored that so many of you choose to read my blogs, appreciate any and all feedback, and look forward to the conversation!

1.23 million dropouts

Imagine each of the blocks below represents 1,000 students. That's how many members of the public high school class of 2008 will fail to graduate without a diploma. Be sure to see the entire Graduation Counts 2008 report from Education Week (free this week!).

Video - Change is good

Greg Davis, who’s on the CASTLE Advisory Board, sent me the Change is Good video yesterday. It’s cute and makes some good points. Here are a few that stood out for me:

1. Re-recruit your best people. As a leader you always should be in marketing mode, obtaining and reinforcing buy-in for desired actions. You can’t just take your stakeholders - even your ‘best’ ones - for granted.
2. Forget for success. It’s difficult to get rid of existing mental frameworks but it’s often necessary in order to move forward.
3. You can’t teach culture. You have to live it … experience it … share it. And most importantly … you have to show it. If we want our staffs to be technology ‘learners,’ what are we doing as school leaders to personally model those learning processes ourselves? Also, what are we doing to help our staffs live and experience the digital, global world on a regular basis?
4. The things that get rewarded and appreciated get done. Leaders control the resources of time, personnel, money, etc. Use them wisely and strategically.
5. Reinforce, reinforce, reinforce. The job is never done. Continuous emphasis of important themes and actions must happen if change is to occur. Say-it-once or do-it-once models of information dissemation and/or staff development are doomed to fail.

FYI, there also are a number of other leadership videos at the Simple Truths web site. Here's a great quote from the You Can't Send a Duck to Eagle School video:

If you chase two rabbits, both will escape.

Unfortunately our K-12 educational system has been asked by society to chase a lot more than two rabbits...

Thanks for sharing, Greg!

Why don't we do more pre-testing?

[cross-posted at LeaderTalk]

When I moved to Iowa from Minnesota, the Iowa Motor Vehicle Division (MVD) didn’t test me before it issued me a driver’s license. It took into account my long history of driving and my clean record and determined that I did not need to take either a written or driving test. I did a quick vision check, took one of those goofy photos, and I was all set.

Imagine, however, if the MVD, before it would issue me a license, wanted me to sit through a series of classes intended to ‘teach’ me how to operate a car and drive safely. I would have been completely annoyed. ‘Test me now!’ I would have exclaimed vociferously. ‘I already know how to do this! Stop wasting my time!’ By now you’re probably nodding your head in agreement, knowing that you’d do the same thing in my situation. Although you’d rather not have to do the written and driving tests again, you’d definitely rather be tested than sit through hours of instruction on material you already know.

Unfortunately this is exactly what happens to our nation’s schoolchildren on a daily basis. Millions of students regularly experience curricula and lessons that address content and concepts with which they’re already familiar. It’s not just the ‘talented and gifted’ kids; there are plenty of students who know the material in a particular learning unit before they even start. They’re just never given the chance to demonstrate their knowledge ahead of time. Nor do they have the opportunity to request to be pre-tested.

What a colossal waste of time this is. Rather than the joy of wrestling with and thinking about new material, students suffer through yet another hour ‘learning’ old information. Rather than working with children who are eager, interested learners, teachers suffer through yet another group of disengaged students.

I wonder why we don’t care more about this? It’s one thing to cover the required curriculum. It’s quite another to have students cover the curriculum despite the fact that they already know it. As a former eighth grade teacher, I know how difficult it is to differentiate instruction. But it’s relatively easy to do some simple pre-testing and at least make an attempt at altering a ‘one size fits all’ lesson plan. If more teachers did this on a regular basis, they might be surprised at how much instructional time they gained back during the year. And of course they’d also have better baseline data with which to assess student learning growth for each curricular unit. And did I mention the message of respect for students that accompanies the practice of pre-testing?

Why don’t we do more pre-testing? Why is it so hard to get teachers to buy into this?