Susanne Nyrop :: Blog

http://terrya.edublogs.org/2008/07/03/another-issue-of-irrodl-and-

Volume 9, No. 2 of the International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning (www.irrodl.org) is now online.
I like this issue for a number of reasons:
I managed to twist the arm of a colleague, Jon Baggaley, to guest edit the issues, as I am still officially on sabbatical. Jon , with the usual able [...]

I attended another of the Language Lab events in Second Life recently which was a conversation with Jessie Dunford Wood, one of a growing number of British celebrity chefs. This phenomenon is in inverse relationship with the reputation of British cuisine. Have you been to a British restaurant lately or do you still prefer the Italian, French, Chinese or Thai? During the conversation Jessie mentioned that he thought that the athletes participating in the 1948 Olympics in London had been asked to bring their own food. This was not so much because the British did not expect any of the athletes to take to British cuisine but more because Britain was still in the throes of rationing after the war. After making the recording I did a bit of research which led me to the National Archives where you can see photographs of actual memos written at the time and read extracts from a number of concerned officials. It seems that the athletes were not required to bring their own food but more that they were invited to bring supplies with the promise that these would not be subject to import duty. So the Argentinians brought beef while the Mexicans went out to local restaurants instead of eating their British rations.  It seems from the memos that ’the habit of regarding food as a precious commodity was foreign’ to the Mexican. I found the story intriguing enough to include it in the latest edition of the podcast.

Also in the podcast is a recording of part of the closing event of a European project using sound in vocational education. The recording is of a Skype video link between the project participants in Aarhus, Denmark and a partner instution in Turkey. The conversation was not planned. There was no agenda. So the topics which were raised were rather general but even so careful listening reveals some cultural misunderstandings. The Turks were asked about student support for university study and it took a long time for them to understand that what the Danes were asking about was a student grant for living expenses rather than just tuition fees. I think that Denmark is one of the few European countries to retain  such generous support to university students. Another example was when the Turks were asking about a potential exchange of skills in the carpentry field. The person who fielded that question had obviously been to Turkey with carpentry students already and you can hear him struggling to explain that the styles favoured in Turkey probably wouldn't go down well with the minimalist preferences of Scandinavian customers. The project was called Brydlydmuren in Danish which means 'Break the sound wall'. On the project website you can find a great deal of documentation to help teachers wanting to introduce sound work in their classrooms.

http://madrattling.wordpress.com/2008/07/02/wordle-tag-clouds/

Wordle is a great tool for creating attractive tag clouds. It allows you to start with your own text (e.g. pasted from a word file),  or any page incorporating a feed such as a blog or a del.icio.us (social bookmarking) account.  The top left Wordle is this blog, the bottom left my del.icio.us and the final [...]

http://madrattling.wordpress.com/2008/07/02/conference-tweets/

At this morning’s keynote at the Ed-Media conference in Vienna a live stream of conference tweets were displayed alongside the presenter’s own presentation.  The point being… uhm, not sure.  Because we can?    To make the session more social and interactive I guess but I think I’d just find it a distraction as both a presenter [...]

http://knowmansland.com/learningpath/?p=122

This is the second blog post on twitter within days. This must mean something.
I have been giving quite a lot of thought about this micro-phenomenon that is twitter. As I said before, I grew fonder and fonder of twitter over time until I totally fell in love with it. Just for you to have an [...]

http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Socialtech/~3/302862833/young-people

I am interested in finding collaborators for a project involving getting a clear picture of the number of teachers who blog across the globe.

In my current research on using social software to support teacher professional development, I found myself asking, I wonder how many classroom educators (a) started a weblog and (b) continue to blog?

Turning to several academic databases as well as Google I found no evidence of any such data. I then turned to Technorati and searched under the following terms: teacher, teachers, teaching, and education.

I received the following results:

teacher -
491,199 posts tagged teacher
5,940 blogs about teacher

teachers -
8,122 posts tagged teachers
2,378 blogs about teachers

teaching -
17,664 posts tagged teaching
5,899 blogs about teaching

education -
117,595 posts tagged education
23,723 blogs about education

[Search conducted on Technorati June 26, 2008 at 8.05 AM EST.]

While this data is intriguing, it does not answer my initial questions. I then went in search for some benchmarks, something to compare these numbers to in Technorati. Unfortunately, I could find no way to adjust my search to a specific time period within Technorati. (Is there a step I am missing?)

Further searching led me to an article from the Houston Chronicle dated January, 29, 2007. The reporter noted that "[t]he number of blogs about "teaching" or "teachers" tracked by Technorati.com" had increased 10 percent in less than six months to "nearly 950."" Unfortunately, it is not clear from the article what 950 represents. Does it mean there are a combined number of blogs about teachers and teaching? Is that an average? Or are both terms showing 950 instances?

Given this limited data set, we can see that since the end of January 2007 to the end of June 2008, the number of blogs about teachers and teaching has grown 2.5 to a little over 6 times larger in 18 months. (How long will this trend continue? What's driving it? Questions for another day....)

So what other data would be useful for thinking about teachers who blog?

According to the Upcoming Statistical Abstract of the United States: 2007, there are 6.8 million teachers employed in the United States. The bulk of them (2.6 million) teach at the elementary and middle school level. The remainder include those teaching at the postsecondary, secondary and preschool and kindergarten levels.

Let's say for the sake of argument, of the 5,940 blogs about teachers, half of those are authored by teachers in the U.S. That would mean that there are around 3,000 teacher bloggers in the U.S. or approximately 1 blogger for every 2,000 teachers.

Does this sound right? Is there better data out there to make more informed estimates about teachers who blog?

Any thoughts or ideas on how to make this information more salient or reliable? Interested in collaborating? Let me know what you think.

 

Reference:
Upcoming Statistical Abstract of the United States: 2007) retrieved 26 June 2008 from http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/www/releases/archives/fac

Graph -- All theories proven with one graph

http://elearning.lse.ac.uk/blogs/clt/?p=295

Over the summer all remaining courses using WebCT will be moved to the LSE’s new virtual learning environment (VLE) Moodle.  There are full details of this project and specific instructions for the remaining WebCT users on our website.

For staff already using Moodle there is also detailed information on the Moodle ‘rollover’ from 2007/8 to 2008/9.   If you have any questions don’t hesitate to contact us

http://madrattling.wordpress.com/2008/06/30/challenges/

Back from blustery, wet, humid Ireland.  That’s not fair.  It’s true but makes it sound like I had no fun which I did.  It was very beneficial for work too!  I’ve made a couple of posts over on my work blog - one on my presentation to a careers conference and one on a meeting [...]

Below is my response to this post/presentation by Stowe Boyd. Looking back, I feel my criticism is a bit pointed, but I guess I'm beginning to feel frustrated by conversations that layout the importance of new media for our collective future without providing any concrete steps that can lead us there.

Please understand, I think Stowe truly has his fingers on the pulse of Western culture. He is a keen observer of society and the associated intricacies and subtleties that impact they way we live and breath. I guess I just want expect pioneering thought leaders to do more. Let's stop talking about affordances, and instead show them. We've had plenty of time to assess the situation, the time is now for action.

Am I being off base here? Have I finally flipped? Am I just having a "bad day?" Perhaps. In the end, I feel that showing is often more important than telling -- especially for someone like myself who has heard this same story for many years.

 

I applaud your efforts and thank you for sharing your presentation.

I found the points presented to be on the mark, but you are focusing on new media affordances, on theoretical possibilities of a hyperconnected reality, and not as much on how to actualize said affordances. Perhaps that will be in the book, but so much of this has been said in so many different ways -- when are the social media heavy-hitters like yourself going to focus on practical applications, on social action, instead of talking about the need or possibility thereof?

I apologize if I appear to be overly pedantic. I guess I'm just tired of seeing the same ideas, the same promises, being replayed over and over for the past 10-15 years about the future and social software.

Your analysis is sharp and your observations are critical. I guess I'm also used to seeing citations for such statements as "We have learned that trust and reputation is personal, non-transferable." Who says this? What research are your referring to?

I teach educators and students how to decode new media, how to validate and evaluate information they find on the Web. I also teach people to understand that such skills are not individual, but cultural. So I think in many ways we are on the same page. I guess that's why I want to see not just a summary of where we are and where we need to go; but instead I want to see such an analysis with an accompanying road map for how to get there. What steps should we be taking to move ourselves in the prescribed direction? Should we be so prescriptive? Should we be constructing this new reality from the ground up? Or do we need help from the centroids, the hierarchies that are in place?

I offer this feedback as someone who recognizes your power and influence in new media markets. Since I am only reading your notes, I am sure there was much more presented in your talk that addresses some of my concerns.

Please know that as an edgling, I am one with you and all of the other edglings trying to make an impact on the centroids (that's why I am dedicated to working with the centroids' children and their children's teachers). But we need more maps, more sharing of what is working in addition to our understanding of what is possible.

Keep rocking...

Chris