This will be a very different sort of post. Long, much too long for a blog post, in my opinion. Empty of links. Already written ahead of time, and for another audience. And frankly in the truly unexplored territory of trying to tie together the world of 'school planning and design' with the explosion of blogging.
For those at home keeping score, this is not a 'digital literacy' argument, and its not anywhere in the same ranks of Will or Miguel or Wes or David or the many others who daily push the boundaries of what the value of the Web2.0 world truly is. I'm not in their league and haven't finessed my opinion fully let.
This is, instead, an answer to a challenge from someone in my firm recently to see if there was a connection between blogging (new educational tool?) and what we do everyday in planning and designing new schools for districts and communities. Truly an interesting challenge. And for better or worse, here is the full draft as it stands now. Please take it in small bites. And feel free to challenge, add, distract, or question. All is fair in love and blog.
"Blogging and the Changing Environment of Education and Collaboration"
As school planners and architects, the question here at our firm always comes back to how the building can support, enhance, and inspire the learning that goes on inside.
Like all great questions, the answer itself constantly changes and evolves over time because ‘how’ students and teachers work together is itself forever evolving. Schools throughout Texas
This is no small challenge.
This means accepting increased attention around tests and standards, reviewing improvements in technology, looking at ‘real world’ learning experiences, creating new partnerships with businesses and community groups, and re-thinking the endless ways that information can be shared in this day and age. It also means that as the design partner, all of us at our firm must not only understand the building itself but also seek to grasp where the ‘future of learning’ is headed.
In addition to my role at work, I also maintain a web site, or ‘blog’, that explores the ‘future of learning’ and how various learning environments will engage learners. Not only is it a way to capture a wide range of research, but it also allows me to tap into a larger network of educators, designers, researchers, business leaders, and community members to explore the many paths education is taking in this day and age. To that end, I was asked recently about blogging and whether or not there is a connection to the design of schools.
An interesting question. A very interesting question, indeed.
Could a simple website that shares research/ideas and gives people a place to interact and contribute to a larger conversation actually be an indicator of how schools will be designed in the future? Could the explosion of blogging and its growing impact on education extend this far? Can the simple act of keeping an interactive ‘log’ (or journal) on the Internet be a canary in the coalmine for larger issues in school planning and design? And could something so seemingly innocent or average have the potential of revolutionizing what takes place in classrooms, or why schools exist in the first place?
I was reminded of these questions recently while driving down I-35W.
On the left side of the road stood a billboard that from a thousand yards away or so appeared to have but a single word: “Blogging”. At 65 miles per hour, it was nearly impossible on the first go-around to make sense of the billboard’s message or to even get a glimpse of the company who had put the advertisement up in the first place. It was a few days later before I finally realized that this was part of a larger AT&T campaign…and my mind began spinning. In a single word, “Blogging”, AT&T was both giving a glimpse of the future and also trying to capture new customers. All in a single word.
My bet would be that the vast majority of people in this country are still unfamiliar with the entire concept of blogging. Or at least unfamiliar. And yet, if you begin to listen carefully, you begin to realize that something powerful is happening throughout society and in classrooms all across this state and country. Blogging is everywhere. A word that everyone hears. A word that didn’t seem to exist even ten years ago. A word that means nothing but seems to be understood by everyone. Or everyone else. And if AT&T is committing significant resources to an ad campaign that is dedicated to grabbing interstate drivers’ attention by the mere use of the word “Blogging” as the catch, something significant must be happening.
But what exactly? And what does this have to do with education? And what does it have to do with the collective work of districts and their design team to create new places of learning?
Let’s go back to the definition of what blogging is and begin to take a look at the impact of what happens in classrooms, and just as importantly to what happens to teachers and students, when they begin to take advantage of this powerful web-based tool.
Blogging is not a form of dance or a strange new video game. It is at its simplest root a way of keeping a ‘diary’ on the web. It comes from joining ‘web’ and ‘log’ to form ‘blogging’. Simple, right? Well, let’s take a closer look.
To a ‘blogger’ (the person who writes or maintains the blog), the beauty of the blog is that within seconds they can essentially start up a brand-new website that can be viewed by anyone in the world. Within seconds, too. For free, or for a very small monthly/yearly cost, the blogger can immediately begin to write about any topic of their choice, can begin sharing links to research or ideas or events or an infinite number of resources on the web and around the world. Why is this important? Great question.
Let me paint a picture for you. Or click on a digital image.
I want you to imagine back to your childhood. Let’s pick 15, when you were most likely a 9th grader. Assume it is at least 10 years ago – 1996 – a blink of an eye in time. Now, imagine you were interested in something very important to you, whether it was music or politics or sports or traveling the world. Now, imagine you wanted to talk about it. Really talk about it. Be an author. Publish. Share your ideas and sources and anything you could imagine with friends or the entire world. Rank a new album or CD. Talk about last night’s football game or a movie you just saw. Argue about politics. Something big and important to you.
Imagine you knew nothing about creating a web site, you weren’t able to get a publisher to take you seriously, and you were only 15 years old with a lot of raw ideas. And let’s say that you not only want to share ideas, be published, be taken seriously by a really diverse audience, but you also want to create a two-way conversation where others would contribute. After all, you’re 15 and it’s always a social game. How would you put this all together? And even if you could, how would you find an audience beyond your immediate friends and be taken truly seriously…and put it all together in one place?
As you think through this on a personal or social level, take a second and consider the same exact set of questions for a student in a classroom who was challenged to write, do research, meet experts, and share ideas. Can you see the room? See the desk? See the student? Something begins to take shape in a very new way when you begin to hear about blogging. Something taking shape, but not entirely clear.
And for many, it’s not too different than Alice
Well, this is where blogging comes in, and why its so important to imagine the entire history of learning and sharing ideas and research and even writing prior to the last 10 years. Just ten years. Before web sites, a young student like you would have had an incredibly challenging time finding an audience no matter how interesting the topic or how passionate they were. It just wasn’t done that way. Only adults, real experts, had audiences. That’s just the way it was.
Now, jump forward to ten years ago when the web started to change a few things. Say you as the student were able to create a website finally thanks to technology and the access to computers, and you could afford to maintain it, and managed even to find a few people to look it over. What would keep the site alive and people actually showing up there? And how could it allow for a 2-way conversation, true collaboration, a community of thinkers, a real social experience?
Remember the basic premise of blogging: a web-based log (or journal) where anyone regardless of age or resource can immediately start a website by using a simple ‘template’, give it a clever name and add some color or photos, seconds later begin adding ‘posts’ (or single-moment entries of words and images), create links from key words or images so that people can explore the entire Internet in one click, and establish a way for visitors to ‘comment’ and share ideas in return. Within seconds! Now, depending on the topic and the links you add, a relatively unknown blog can suddenly be found by anyone who uses the right search word. Or even an accidental one.
Think about the power of Google and you get the image.
All of this seems rather uneventful and frankly uninspired. You have a website. You add content. You offer links. And people visit, read your ideas, and maybe explore some of your suggestions by clicking on a link or two. Simple. Even easy to ignore or overlook. But this is where the power of blogging takes you by surprise. And it reminds you that there must be a reason why AT&T (and countless other international organizations) are banking significant funds in this seemingly mundane technology. It’s just a website, right? A web-based journal, correct? And it’s most certainly why the future relationship between classrooms and students/teachers might have to be re-considered when all is said and done. Possibly.
Let’s see if we can get to the bigger issue in one or two more chess moves…
We’ve discussed a basic definition of blogging (web-based journaling). We’ve accepted that anyone can immediately create a website now called a blog. And if you think about being a 15 year old and wanting to share your ideas about music or sports or whatever comes to mind in a creative and individual way, a social and collaborative way, you can see why someone would create one. Even see the potential for a teacher and a class full of students to create ‘class blogs’ for a project or portfolio. But is there more?
Yes, and it all comes down to something so fundamental to the very existence of schools and even education itself that it’s actually pretty easy to overlook: information and who owns/creates it.
We live in a remarkable world where the Internet has moved from a research experiment to a social curiosity to a dot.com frenzy to a normal part of each of our day-to-day existence. In many ways, schools and classrooms are at the center of it all. Computers are tools and in many ways similar to pens and radios and a screwdriver in the fact that they exist simply to help us do things. On the other hand, the raw existence of the Internet is something far more powerful. And what’s just beginning to unfold in blogging, podcasting, and other Web2.0 ways is even more impressive and curious.
While we still generally believe in the value of libraries and traditional research, we’d be hard-pressed to find many adults who didn’t realize that the Internet is the dominant manner in which students of all ages seek out information. When you were kids, perhaps the phrase “Look it up” was used, but it meant open a dictionary or look into an encyclopedia. True, such sources still exist, but they are secondary, even tertiary, places to look for information, for facts, for answers.
This, as you can imagine, has begun to change the very way that students answer questions, seek advice, put two and two together, find interesting new ideas, and make sense of the world around them. While the average adult might still see the encyclopedia or newspaper or library as the place they’d go if the computer ever shut down, today’s student frankly wonders how anything could even be a replacement for the web when it comes to research and exploring ideas. Even if the power were shut off.
This isn’t about lazy. This is about something far deeper and more transformative.
This is important, and eventually ties back to the revolution of blogging, because of the shifting nature of information. On the one hand, where you find information is the key to so much of what a student does each day at school. Take notes. Visit the library. Write on notecards. Fill out a bibliography. Read a chapter. And as someone who spent ten years as a high school teacher before joining an architecture firm, I can say from personal experience that information is in many ways the reason why schools actually exist. Yes, it is about citizenship and socialization and ‘making the grade’. But it’s primarily about finding and sorting through information. For centuries, schools were the ‘place’ to locate facts, answers, and all shades of information…and more importantly, to begin wrestling with the important questions about life. There was a sense that if you didn’t know, school would be the place to go to find out. Or at least the bigger library down the street.
And then came the Internet.
Suddenly, not only did schools begin to realize the power of helping students connect to the world via the web, but students began putting more and more faith in the sources found ‘out there’ in the Internet than the books and newspapers and even classrooms that exist physically around them. Looking things up changed somewhere in the last ten years. ‘Google’ became a verb that is universally known. And teachers and librarians daily wrestle with the student who wonders why they need a ‘real book’ source for even the most important research paper.
Yes, something fundamental is changing, and my gut tells me it’s not just about a lazy generation of students hooked on computers.
While this has meant a significant shift in what students and teachers do with regards to research, it still is essentially a version of what has always taken place. Whether a library or an Internet source, much is still the same. Someone with a lot of experience has ‘written’ a book or article or published research of one manner or another. Instead of pulling a book off the shelf, a student goes to Google, does a word search, and makes a decision as to what link he/she wants to follow and use as a source. While more digital, it is essentially the same process. And to those who have really begun to look at the history of the Internet, this is now known as the Web1.0, or the first version of the Internet. Information is available but is static. People find, review, and select information. That’s it. Find and leave. The ‘relationship’ between student and fact essentially ends. You see, it’s only about reading or listening. Yes, you can create a website, but essentially it expects that viewer is passive, is reading, is watching, is merely absorbing information.
When it comes to all that we now know about learning, about the importance of interaction, one begins to wonder how this model will continue to stand even a few years into the future.
Blogging, on the other hand, explodes at the same moment that typical research begins to end…and this is the beginning of what is known as the Web2.0 world, or the second iteration or generation of the Internet. It is also known as the “read/write” web because by its very definition it only exists when the owner of a website and the audience interact, read and write together, share ideas, and collaborate. While the owner of the blog technically ‘owns’ the site, the information is truly open-source. Anyone that can find the website can write back, add information, and take the conversation in a new direction. And instead of a being merely a new ‘tool’, the power of the Web2.0 world and experiences like blogging is based upon the realization that information is no longer static and ‘owned’ by one individual or group. Information is collaborative and forever being added to or challenged or evolved.
Now, go back to that original 15 year old. Imagine you as a 15 year old with a blog of your own.
Imagine that student able to create a blog in seconds and within days or weeks or months have an audience spread out around the world that is genuinely interested in the ideas and stories and links and images that are on the blog, beginning to be taken seriously as a writer or an expert or a legitimate voice, and beginning to use the blog as a way to further explore ideas and develop a far-reaching network of thinkers and beginning to be seen on a level playing field as any adult. And now imagine that student going back to school the next day and being asked to sit still, read books or notes that expect no interaction, being forever being seen as inexperienced and incapable, and not being able to contribute any ideas or questions to the larger body of research or ideas.
Can you imagine what would have been possible if that technology and idea-sharing had been possible when you were a teenager?
Because if you can imagine that student in a Web1.0 world (or earlier) being told to remain quiet and passive when it comes to receiving information and the same student being an active and respected member of a larger digital community of ideas via their blog in Web2.0 world, then you can begin to imagine that schools that begin to think about the power of blogging might be onto something.
Afterall, AT&T isn’t putting up those billboards for nothing. And technology experts and teachers around the country aren’t debating the power and value and safety of blogging for no reason. And kids of all ages and technical skill and background aren’t starting blogs of their own on a daily basis because they have no power. And every major international corporation, newspaper, media outlet, and political group in this country aren’t beginning to add blogs to their marketing and publishing efforts because there is no long-range gain to be had.
No, something is happening. And something very powerful is beginning to take shape.
Remember, ten years ago this wasn’t even possible. It was just a question of computers and maybe access to the Internet if it ever exploded. It was email and dot.com pet stores and a lot of confusion as to what the web really was. Well, the web exploded and nobody really questions the role of the computer anymore. But for those of us who see it merely as a faster or digital version of what we’ve always done, and that fundamentally school and education and information sharing and the way one gets published will essentially stay the same or remain in the hands of those who are most experienced for the foreseeable future, this might be the time to begin asking if something is changing.
You see, blogging is merely a simple software tool. On the surface it’s merely a website with content and images. And if you stop by and look at one a time or two nothing really happens. You’ve seen a million sites like this. Check in, check out. But if you stick around for a bit, if you follow a link, if you add a comment or two, if you come back a few days later or weekly or even more often and see what’s been added, if you create a blog of your own, if you add the link to a friend’s blog or a classmate’s blog or a blog of someone from the other side of the world, and if you wake up one day and you receive an email from someone you’ve never met who wanted to tell you how much they appreciated your ideas on something you cared deeply about, then you begin to realize that something really powerful is happening in this Web2.0 world.
Furthermore, if you’re a teacher or a parent or a school leader or a community thinking about ‘how’ information will be shared and authored and discussed and collaborated upon in the schools you are building for the future, then you begin to see that if simply keeping a journal on the web, blogging, can spark a student to be a true voice in the larger world, then you have to ask yourself what it is really all about.
And also ask: what’s coming next?
After all, any 15 year old who owns a MySpace.com site can tell you. And any major company like AT&T that has realized that they need to have a constant connection to their consumers can tell you that it’s about conversation, not information, can tell you. And journalists and media experts and your school IT specialist can certainly tell you.
Anyone who thinks that its still about books and resources and links and experts might wonder when it all began to change, on the other hand,…well, they might not be able to tell you what all the fuss is about.
Not sure where to turn now? Trust the traditionalists? Get caught up in some new tech trend with a funky name? Or just ignore the fuss and hold the middle ground?
Better yet, ask a 15 year near you to show you how to start a blog of your own, pick a template and a catchy name, start talking about things that matter to you – your kids, your school, the future of your community, the way the entire world is becoming more and more flat – and see who shows up at your blog-doorstep. You might be amazed.
And you might find yourself in a matter of days or weeks or months being a trusted voice by people around the world. Or at least a trusted voice to that same 15 year old who has decided to follow a new set of paths to find information and a community of people who want to talk and challenge and see what’s possible if they learn and work collaboratively.
As a school planning and architecture firm, we are deeply vested in the buildings that support and enhance the act of learning. At the same time, we are also deeply interested in the continually evolving ways that students and teachers interact with the world around them, how they learn, and how they collaborate on new projects. Perhaps blogging is merely something that will be added to a larger repertoire of classroom techniques over time. And perhaps the ‘space’ of learning will still look like a classroom with tables and computers, no matter how influential blogging becomes. All of this is possible.
But each of us at our firm can’t help but wonder how the learning environments and buildings called schools will begin to respond over time as more and more learning is done in a ‘virtual’ manner, as more and more students begin to share their voices with a larger world, and as more and more of learning becomes collaborative conversations.
I’m finally beginning to understand why AT&T bet on a driver passing at 65 miles per hour would eventually ‘get it’ when they passed a single billboard with a single word. Blogging has that sort of impact.
And the future of learning will indeed be found somewhere in this blogging world, one way or another.