David Tomlinson's Profile

Blogging is something defined by format and process, not by
content.

The blogging tool is, at its heart, a form with two fields: title and entry—and
the title field is optional.

weblogs break down barriers. They allow ideas to be based on merit, rather than
origin, and ideas that are of quality filter across the Internet

"By its very nature, assigned blogging in schools cannot be blogging. It’s
contrived. No matter how much we want to spout off about the wonders of audience
and readership, students who are asked to blog are blogging for an audience of
one, the teacher."

Blogging, however, offers students a chance to a) reflect on what they are
writing and thinking as they write and think it, b) carry on writing about a
topic over a sustained period of time, maybe a lifetime, and c) engage readers
and audience in a sustained conversation that then leads to further writing and
thinking."³⁶

"Instead of assigning students to go write, we should assign them to go read and
then link to what interests them and write about why it does and what it
means."³⁷

"It is through quality linking . . . that one first comes in contact with the
essential acts of blogging: close reading and interpretation. Blogging, at base,
is writing down what you think when you read others. If you keep at it, others
will eventually write down what they think when they read you, and you’ll enter
a new realm of blogging, a new realm of human connection."³⁸

. . As soon as these activities are put into the context of school, focused on
topics the students are unlikely to care about much, they automatically lose a
level of authenticity and engagement.

Despite obvious appearances, blogging isn’t really about writing at all; that’s
just the end point of the process, the outcome that occurs more or less
naturally if everything else has been done right. Blogging is about, first,
reading. But more important, it is about reading what is of interest to you:
your culture, your community, your ideas. And it is about engaging with the
content and with the authors of what you have read—reflecting, criticizing,
questioning, reacting. If a student has nothing to blog about, it is not because
he or she has nothing to write about or has a boring life. It is because the
student has not yet stretched out to the larger world, has not yet learned to
meaningfully engage in a community.

The process of reading online, engaging a community, and reflecting it online is
a process of bringing life into learning.

ultimately, aren’t we trying to teach our kids how to learn, and isn’t that
[what] blogging is all about?"⁴⁰

Learning is characterized not only by greater autonomy for the learner, but also
a greater emphasis on active learning, with creation, communication and
participation playing key roles, and on changing roles for the teacher, indeed,
even a collapse of the distinction between teacher and student altogether [7].

major parts of the World Wide Web were acquiring the properties of
communications networks

the Web was shifting from being a medium, in which information was transmitted
and consumed, into being a platform, in which content was created, shared,
remixed, repurposed, and passed along.

the emergence of the Web 2.0 is not a technological revolution, it is a social
revolution.

what constituted "community" in online learning were artificial and often
contrived "discussions" supported by learning management systems [15].

a community of practice is characterized by "a shared domain of interest" where
"members interact and learn together" and "develop a shared repertoire of
resources."

The model of e-learning as being a type of content, produced by publishers,
organized and structured into courses, and consumed by students, is turned on
its head.

what happens when students blog, and read reach others' blogs, is that a network
of interactions forms-much like a social network, and much like Wenger's
community of practice.

Rather than being composed, organized and packaged, e-learning content is
syndicated, much like a blog post or podcast. It is aggregated by students,
using their own personal RSS reader or some similar application. From
there, it is remixed and repurposed with the student's own individual
application in mind, the finished product being fed forward to become fodder for
some other student's reading and use.

While there is still an element of content delivery in these systems, there is
also an increasing recognition that learning is becoming a creative activity and
that the appropriate venue is a platform rather than an application.