Teach42

I’m making SOME progress with getting the Head at my school to recgonize the potential benefits of blogs in education, but I’m battling for every inch. I think it’s a fight worth waging, but I need some help right now. During our last conversation, she told me that she’d spoked to several principals and superintendents in the area and that none of them were interested in using blogs, namely because of the issues that could arise from having public comments on. When I told her we could simply turn comments off entirely she was stunned, but didn’t veer from her stance. If it’s not good enough for everyone else to be using, then we don’t want to use it either.

This puts me in the position of either accepting the fact that our school won’t move forward with this until the majority of the schools in the Chicago area are using it, or I keep fighting. If you know anything about me, it’s that I don’t give up easy so I choose to continue the good fight. I asked her whether she might like to speak to speak to some principals and administrators in schools that ARE using blogs and wikis, she seemed hesitant. It almost seemed as though she wanted to say, “No, I don’t want to speak to them” but then changed her mind and said that she would only speak to private school heads. Not to be nitpicky, but I find it interesting that she was willing to speak to public school officials in order to condem it, but not to condone it. However, any progress at all is better than no progress.

So now I’m on a quest. If you’re reading this weblog, I urge you to try to find some private schools that are using blogs and send me some links to sdembo@gmail.com . I’m going to be doing my own hunting as well, but every bit of help is greatly appreciated.

So that’s it for now. Wish me luck on my two current ‘quests’: enabling our teachers to make use of the Read/Write web, and getting my podcast woes eliminated! Podcast #2 will be coming soon, I promise!

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