Stager-to-Go

Sunday, June 22, 2008

A Blog Netiquette Question

I seem to run a foul of secret blogger rules of conduct with regularity. An experience six weeks ago has stayed with me and I'd love to read your thoughts on the matter.

On May 6, I wrote, Isn't It Ironic?, in this blog. I asked why edubloggers, particularly edtech edubloggers, don't discuss fundamental educational issues, like the fraud and miseducative practice associated with the US Federal Government's national reading policy.

Many of the most popular, hired and prolific members of the EduBlogosphere (particularly the edtech bloggers) spend a great deal of time, word count and airplane mileage talking about the importance of literacy - old literacy, new literacy, media literacy, superdooper 21st Century Web 2.0 literacy and "literacies" yet to be invented.

Literacy dominates my esteemed colleague's thoughts about education. Therefore, I find it shocking that there is so little [read: none] discussion of the news that the federal Department of Education has concluded that Reading First, the $6 billion shock and awe approach to literacy education at the core of No Child Left Behind, has FAILED to improve the reading comprehension of American students.

Why the silence among EduBloggers? Is this issue unimportant? Should we ignore the calamity created by Reading First just because it doesn't mention Twitter, Apture, Ning or other made-up words?


I was criticizing the absence of outrage among the edubloggers I read and wound up incurring the wrath of the blogosphere instead. Non-Americans were defensive in their comments when I was clearly not talking about them. Independent school teachers and educators from affluent school districts protested that they are not affected by Reading First - unless of course you count them as citizens who pay taxes or care for their neighbors.

In the spirit of civility, I did not name the specific bloggers and pundits
who were curiously silent on important matters of policy and pedagogy.

I'm wondering if that was a mistake?

My attempt at discretion apparently led to widespread confusion. For that I apologize.

Should I have called out the specific educators with a gap between rhetoric and action?

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Friday, May 30, 2008

A Writing Teacher Discusses the NY Times "Blogger Girl"


Putting blogger, Emily Gould, on the cover of last Sunday's New York Times Magazine set off a firestorm among the chattering classes of traditional media and the blogosphere.

The Los Angeles Times discusses the controversy and whether Ms. Gould's blog-fueled fame/exhibitionism is worthy of such prized New York Times real estate.

Marcia Meier, director of the Santa Barbara Writer's Conference, writes in the Huffington Post, "At Least She's Writing..." in an article that makes arguments Will Richardson might share.

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Tuesday, May 6, 2008

Isn't it Ironic?

Many of the most popular, hired and prolific members of the EduBlogosphere (particularly the edtech bloggers) spend a great deal of time, word count and airplane mileage talking about the importance of literacy - old literacy, new literacy, media literacy, superdooper 21st Century Web 2.0 literacy and "literacies" yet to be invented.

Literacy dominates my esteemed colleague's thoughts about education. Therefore, I find it shocking that there is so little [read: none] discussion of the news that the federal Department of Education has concluded that Reading First, the $6 billion shock and awe approach to literacy education at the core of No Child Left Behind, has FAILED to improve the reading comprehension of American students.

Why the silence among EduBloggers? Is this issue unimportant? Should we ignore the calamity created by Reading First just because it doesn't mention Twitter, Apture, Ning or other made-up words?

Or, are you waiting to be told what to think by Tom Friedman or Daniel Pink?

Too bad the self-proclaimed prophets of the information and media literacy "revolution" have nothing to offer the educators who will need to cleanup this mess created by the Bush Administration and perpetuated by those who remained silent when they knew better.

For the record, I've been writing about this issue for four years. An anthology of this work may be found here. I hope to have a more substantive piece published for a larger audience sometime this week. Stay tuned.

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