Day: November 1, 2005

Just passing this request along. ISTE is urging members to contact representatives to support EETT (Enhancing Education Through Technology). EETT money goes to states and districts. EETT reportedly provides the only technology money in a number of states.

Additional information is provided at the Action Network site.

Justification for such cuts involves the tremendous costs of the hurricane damage, the war, etc. No doubt all of these issues are important and the costs cannot be avoided. Raise taxes! What kind of weird political position assumes such costs need not be counted as part of the financial responsibility of the American people. Attempting to cut educational support only shifts responsibility to the local level. This is not a true savings because many local districts will raise the mill levy and those districts which cannot respond will fall behind. Off-loading the cost of education only increases inequities across districts. What about NCLB? What more obvious way to support ALL students than to make the education of all students the responsibility of all citizens.

When we first began writing about the Internet, we tried to make the point to educators that the Internet was not developed for you. The Internet is for everyone and serves a wide variety of purposes. Some material may have been developed for the purpose you have in mind, but much of the material would have been developed for other purposes.

I am reminded of this same point today. USA Today has an article describing adolescent blogs and the type of information that is contained in such blogs. In commenting on this article Will Richardson takes issue with the use of the term blog and attempts to differentiate journal from blog. I understand the distinction, but many will not care. It is blogging software, the content is hosted on sites described as blog sites, so participants describe what they are doing as blogging.

Schools are caught in a difficult position. While they may see the educational benefits of blogging, they may prefer that students within the school walls not read the other material that is posted to blogs. What can I say – it is the Internet and it has no priority customers.

Perhaps special purpose and protected blogs are the answer for some. However, like the Internet in general, a protected approach will eliminate access to both bad and good stuff.