I know, I know. Technically, Will Richardson isn’t a higher ed blogger, but he has inspired many — among those, yours truly — to start blogging. Blogvangelist and Supervisor of Instructional Technology and Communications at Hunterdon Central Regional High School in Flemington, NJ, Richardson has been blogging at “Weblogg-ed, the read/write web in the classroom” for several years about “discussions and reflections on the use of Weblogs, wikis, RSS, audiocasts and other Read/Write Web related technologies in the K-12 realm.” His blogging has changed his life and packed his schedule. That’s why I feel very lucky he took the time to answer my questions.
1) You have become a recognized national expert in the use of Web 2.0 technologies (blogs, podcasts, RSS, etc.) in the K12 realm. Why did you decide to blog at that time and how has it changed your life?
Actually, I started blogging in the summer of 2001 after I happened upon the site Metafilter.com. The appeal of being able to publish content and have conversations with readers was immediate for me, probably because of my journalism background. But I also became interested in how blogs might be used as teaching tools, and in the fall of 2001 I used them with my journalism students to hold online discussions and collect interesting news and feature stories. The next year, I used a blog to teach the novel The Secret Life of Bees and was able to enlist the author Sue Monk Kidd to work with my students on the blog. Since then, we’ve hosted over 1,000 student blogs on our servers in over 30 different classes.
Simply put, blogging has changed my life. I was a frustrated journalist/writer until I started blogging and finding an audience. In the 4+ years that I’ve been blogging I’ve written over 4,000 posts, published a dozen articles, and written a book that will be released in March. I’ve learned more in the last four years about teaching, education, technology and life than in all of my years of formal schooling combined. Blogging has truly facilitated lifelong learning, provided me with dozens of wonderful teachers, and given me an opportunity to engage in some very meaningful conversations with people from around the world. It’s been an amazing experience.
2) How familiar are today’s high school students – all members of the so-called “Net Generation” – with these new technologies when they go to college?
I think in general, kids are pretty familiar with the tools, though they don’t think of them as being technology so much as just a way of life. I know this doesn’t hold true for kids who come from less connected areas, and that’s a huge problem that needs to be addressed right away. Now that the Web is about creation and publishing of content instead of just consumption of content, the digital divide is even more acute. But for the kids that do have access, these tools have become a part of their lives. They IM, text message, play online games, remix digital content and work online more than their teachers and parents. And I think in many ways, it’s their ability to deal in this digital ecology that will force schools to change. We’re on the verge of becoming irrelevant if we disregard the changes that Web is bringing to the world, much less to education.
3) In your opinion, what should colleges and universities do with these new technologies to better address their freshmen’s technological needs and preferences?
I think we’re at a point now where creating and sustaining a digital portfolio of work through a blog or some other means is imperative. If you subscribe to the “Small Pieces Loosely Joined” philosophy of David Weinberger, it’s crucial that we teach our students how to connect in effective ways with other learners, teachers and content, and teach them how to manage all of the information they create and consume. There are many different tools that do this, and we have to make sure our students can use them effectively to orchestrate their learnign. These are basic literacies in a Web 2.0 world where independent learning is not only possible but in many cases more effective than what happens in classrooms. At this point, students who leave college without a digital record of that learning that includes reflection and extended conversations are being short changed.