BP2_2010011_EduUses4Blogs

How do we transition from the "old school" way of education with our brick buildings and standard lecture practices to the new way where technology facilitates learning? One of the ways is to use blogs creatively and correctly. Marti A. Hearst, a professor in the University of California, Berkeley School of Information says, "a blog search should be able to accomplish three tasks: find out what people are thinking about a certain topic over time; suggest blogs that are good to read for their style, personality, and other criteria; and find useful information in older blog posts, along the lines of standard search of more static documents"(Savage 2010). If educators could use this as a checklist for themselves and their students, imagine the type of quality information one could find in a short amount of time.

I have to admit that before I started my masters program whenever I heard the term "Blog" I immediately thought of a high school girl talking about the newest episode of Jersey Shore so that all her friends could comment and gossip. However, after the past couple of months and especially the past couple of days I have come to realize that blogs are a powerful way to impart information and if used correctly can help move education forward.

There are some problems associated with blogs such as trying to find the right ones and their validity and reliability. Another is the lack of a quality search engine that is devoted to blogs. Hearst says “I don’t think we have really good blog search yet" (Savage) and I have yet to find one in the vast array of Web 2.0 tools either. Despite these potential pitfalls I honestly believe that blogs will be one of the many tools we need to promote and use if we are ever going to advance our educational system.

Savage, N. (2010). New search challenges and opportunities. Communications of the ACM, 53(1), 27-28. Retrieved on January 10, 2010 from DOI:10.1145/1629175.1629183