Technorati have recently released their annual State of the Blogosphere report. Since 2004, thier annual study has unearthed and analyzed the trends and themes of blogging, but for the 2008 study, they resolved to go beyond the numbers of the Technorati Index to deliver even deeper insights into the blogging mind. The 2008 report has some interesting depth presented in five special sub-reports:

• Who Are the Bloggers?
• The What And Why of Blogging
• The How of Blogging
• Blogging For Profit
• Brands Enter The Blogosphere

The 2008 report reveals just how pervasive blogs have become , and the extent to which they are a part of our daily lives. The figures supporting this vary from survey to survey, but all are now consistently high!

The understanding of what a blog is is changing - once known as an abbreviated form of Web-log, this report reveals a relatively equal distribution of use of blogs across all age, gender and occupation categories.  In addition, the figures reveal that blogging is now a truly global phenomenon.

Technorati defines the Active Blogosphere as: The ecosystem of interconnected communities of bloggers and readers at the convergence of journalism and conversation. As the Blogosphere grows in size and influence, the lines between what is a blog and what is a mainstream media site become less clear. I found it interesting to note, for instance, that in the US, 95% of the top 100 US newspapers have reporter blogs now.

Perhaps the other thing that stands out in this report is the emergence of brands and branding of blogs, and the fact that there is now good money to be made from certain genres of blog.

For anyone interested in the emerging trends associate with blogs and blog use this is a fascinating report. Probably the most interesting section for me is the “what and why of blogging” which reveals all sorts of interesting data about why people blog, what they blog about and how they measure the success of their blog. Although Education doesn’t specifically get a mention (doesn’t even appear in the top 18 topics blogged about!), there’s plenty in this report to inform thinking about the use of blogs and blogging in educational contexts.

Brilliant comment from Miguel Guhlin on Al Upton’s blog which I just have to refer to here. Writing with just a modicum of hyperbole, Miguel illustrates the tensions that I referred to in my previous blog entry, of a system that is resistant to the very essence of change that is impacting on it from every quarter, and where the pedagogy of assessment continues to drive the pedagogy of instruction!

Al, as a school district administrator myself, but also, as a citizen of the United States, I have to confess that I’m a bit grateful your blog has been shut down and Australian children denied the opportunity to engage in global collaobrations and learning. Here’s why:

In the United States, blogs are distractions to the real job of educators to improve student achievement on accountability measures. Blogs, as tools for online publishing, engage students with access to an authentic audience–that sometimes, let’s be honest, can be TOO authentic if you get what I mean–and may result in divergent learning that is, to be frank, unsuitable to preparing children for yesterday’s workforce. We want children who are literate, but lack that attitude that would hurt their careers and survival in our workforce…it is our goal to establish (and we’ve done an excellent job aside from your blogging efforts) a, what Paulo Friere calls, “domesticating” educational experience.

Secondly, you’ve no doubt read of books like Wikinomics, The World is Flat, and A Whole New Mind…these are books that speak to the interconnectedness of world affairs, peer productions–companies working in tandem across the globe to create a new product marketed to millions on the web–necessary in the future. I’m honestly grateful that Australians will be barred from this world, prevented from joining peer producers in the world. To be honest, in the United States, there’s been a bit of concern that you Australians (not to mention New Zealanders) have been engaging too rapidly in this new virtual world.

It’s a relief to know that you’ll be “dummed down” to join the United States in a slower realization of these truths. Some argue that we need to distinguish between using technology as a way to empower students, facilitate communication/collaboration at a distance rather than using technology to domesticate our students, helping them achieve basic skills that won’t get them much farther anyways. But you see, in this competitive, global economy, disempowering YOUR children may allow mine to do well.

Al, take a hit for the opposite team. Rejoice that my students will whip your’s when it comes to working online, and that you won’t have distractions when drilling students in basic skills.

With appreciation for the lack of leadership in your part of the world,
Miguel Guhlin Around the Corner-MGuhlin.net
http://mguhlin.net
U.S. School District Administrator

My Twitterific has been running hot in the past few minutes as news about Jabiz Raisdana, otherwise known as Intrepid Teacher, spreads through the blogosphere. The story is a fascinating commentary on the times we live in. Raisdana, a teacher of 8th grade English and humanities classes has been sacked by his school after a member of the community took objection to some material he had posted on his personal blog. Raisdana explains in his latest post:

Due to a lapse in my judgment regarding material posted on my personal blog, my school has asked me to resign. I want you, as the readers of this blog, to know that I am agreeing to this decision without reservation, and I understand the steps taken by the school to protect its reputation.

Now I don’t want to explore the ins and outs of why this happened in this post - what I am fascinated by is the post that Raisdana made to his students in his class blog and, more significantly, the feedback and comments he received from his students and other teachers. Raisdana is obviously active in the online world - he has several blogs operating, has accounts with skype, twitter etc and contributes to online photo collections etc. More significantly, it would appear that he has been successful in using these tools within his classroom teaching, using them to engage his students in powerful learning experiences. The following examples of comments from his students in response to his Good-bye post illustrate the impact of this…

• Language arts was our favorite class. It was really the only class we had to really think.

• I will continue posting on my blog regularly. You won’t be able to read my posts, but they will be inspired by you.
• Now the blog is like one of my life. I love to write on that.
• I just wanted you to know that I enjoyed every second of Humanities..and that’s basically because you were there teaching us. It was new, fun and at the same time..educational.
• You made Language Arts class more fun, and more interesting. We didnt sit there and read text books, or memorize vocabulary… you taught us about life.
• I know I’m the quiet kid who never says much, and thats just the way I am right now. But, you’ve got me thinking. You have us all thinking. We won’t forget you, Mr. Raisdana.
• When I first saw you I thought that you were some loony computer guy that was inspired about how cool programs are on the computer, but now I look at you as a man who didn’t care about grades but on how we could succeed throughout life, a man who encourages growing awareness on all the world, someone who knows that everyone is ignorant including himself but tries his very best to find out more, a person that strives for cooperation, not competition, and last but not least a man that knows exactly who he wants to influence people.
• I can’t believe this. Just as we were getting the feel of our blogs, the whole thing came to a screeching halt….You are one of the best teachers I’ve ever had, and I will always remember you. I’ve learned more in the one semester you taught me than I ever have before. I appreciate everything. A lot. Thanks again, and I’m going to miss you a lot.
• I’m proud to have been your student and I always boast about how good a teacher you were.

These are just a few of the comments - it’s worth a read of them all! Seems to me that we could do with a few more Jabiz Raisdanas in our classrooms. In my job I am constantly seeking to encourage and enthuse teachers to do exactly what this young man has been doing - let’s hope this story helps inspire others as they read the testimony of the students, and not (as I fear it may) be used by the naysayers as evidence of the perils of getting involved in the online world!

As Raisdana notes in his personal blog, there are many lessons to be learned here about things such as online identities, teachers as role models, institutionalized education, etc. I’m sure they’ll all get a good airing in future blog entries - but lets for the moment savour those comments from the students, and consider what they have to tell us about the efforts of a passionate and dedicated teacher who incorporates the use of online technologies in a way that is enriching and empowering!

I’ve blogged a few times in the past about Quintura and Quintura for Kids - and have been privileged to be a part of the beta testing programme of this exciting new search engine.

Today I received notification from Yakov and his team announcing the release of their Quintura for site search. As you’ll note, I’ve added this feature to the left hand menu of my blog site. It’s easy to do for any web site - simply visit the Quintura site, click on the “embed” button and copy and the paste the generated code into the appropriate place on your website. I had to do a little playing around to make it fit the menu on my blog - some sorting to do with the sizing of the column and a stray div command, but it works now - wahoo!

Thanks to Jacov and his team for this brilliant product - making search so visual appeals very much to the way I like to go hunting for things.

I was fascinated to read Robin Good’s report on the annual Technorati Blog Statistics and Trends report that has just been released by Technorati CEO, Dave Silfy.

Not surprisingly the report shows that the uptake of blogs continues to escalate at an explosive pace, but there are signs also that the “blogosphere” is maturing, with some definite patterns of use establishing in what the data reveals. Some indications of this growth include:

• The blogosphere is now 70 million weblogs wide

• About 120,000 new weblogs are created each day, or…
• 1.5 million posts per day
• 1.4 new blogs are created every second
• 17 posts are made every second

Robin’s post is the place to head for a fuller summary of what the report says, but a couple of things did stand out for me.

The first relates to the internationalisation of blogs - and the language they are written in. According to the Technorati stats for this year, the Japanese are now the world’s greatest blogging nation (based on langauge of blogs). Of the top four languages for blogging, Japanese retakes the top spot from the last report, with 37% (up from 33%) of the posts followed closely by English at 36% (down from 39%). Next after these two front-running languages is Chinese which comes in third at 8% (down from 10% in 2006, and fourth is Italian at 3% (up from 2% last year).

The other thing that caught my eye is the data indicating a rapid rise in the use of Tagging. The report noted that 35% of all February 2007 posts used tags. As Silfy states; “we???re seeing explosive growth in the tags index. People are clicking on tags, people are using tags, Google features tagged media in its results pages.. Is this the sign we’ve been looking for to confirm the establishment of folksonomies as a legitimate contender for how we organise and mange information>

Read the full State of the Live Web report by David Silfy in its original version with additional graphs and stats here:
The State of the Live Web, April 2007

There are also links to the previous year’s Technorati reports at the bottom of Robin Good’s post - these provide very useful reading to make comparisons and discover where the trends are.

It’s official - the Time magazine Person of the Year for 2006 is “YOU”!!! In a world where stories of war, political intrigue and natural disasters have dominated the news, Time magazine has chosen a different perspective for 2006…

look at 2006 through a different lens and you’ll see another story, one that isn’t about conflict or great men. It’s a story about community and collaboration on a scale never seen before. It’s about the cosmic compendium of knowledge Wikipedia and the million-channel people’s network YouTube and the online metropolis MySpace. It’s about the many wresting power from the few and helping one another for nothing and how that will not only change the world, but also change the way the world changes.

Supporting this view of an online world where community and collaboration is occurring is the Guardian’s list of The new 100 most useful sites. (Thanks Douglas for the pointer). Their list shows a dramatic change in emphasis, with a proliferation of social networking technologies, usefully categorised. The one category that is missing, they note, is mobile technologies, but hte list authors see this as a possible addition in 2007.

And from the Online Education Database is a list of their Top 100 Education Blogs. These were selected from the 5000-odd blogs that are tracked through Technorati. I’m not sure about the categorisation they’ve used, but there are some really useful blogs to check out here! (Including yours truly - see under the “Technology” category!)

Day two of the CEGSA conference went very well - all sorts of interesting workshops and presentations.
A standout for me was a double act from Graham Wegner and Al Upton - both ICT facilitators from schools in the Adelaide area. Their presentation dealt with their experiences in using blogs - both personally and with teachers, focusing on the value of blogs as a professional learning tool.

I was particularly impressed with what Graeme had to say, and with the way he illustrated how his use of a blog had enabled him to become a part of a much wider and more diverse range of professional learning communities - communicating with people he’d never otherwise have had the opportunity to do so. He used a simple network map created in TouchGraph to illustrate the extent of these networks. I appreciated the thought Graham had put into getting his message across in such a clear and concise manner, thoughtfully reflecting on his own actions and decisions throughout the process of creating and maintaining his blog, and his approach to becoming an activie participant in the ‘blogosphere’. This sort of reflection can be noted in the entries he makes in his blog.

Graham has posted his network map, along with his powerpoint show and some other useful links and diagrams on his Teaching Generation Z blog.
Al Upton has also posted some useful references from this sesson on his Al Upton and the MiniLegends blog. Both of these are worth a look at to get some more understanding of the use of blogs from a practitioner point of view.

Anne Davis has developed a very useful and informative wiki titled Improving Instruction Through the use of Weblogs that provides anyone interested in finding out how blogs can be used in education with some great reading!

I was particularly struck by Anne’s personal statement in the Shaping Pedagogy Through Blogging section:

I think I’m a better writing teacher now than when I previously taught it in my classroom. I was bound within 4 walls and had been taught to work at getting a good final product. I was not a writer myself. That’s the most important part I was missing. Blogging myself shows my students that I value writing and I realize the hard work it requires.

The wiki contains everything from curriculum-based examples to more theoretical pieces on pedagogy and blogging and webtools for teachers. It’s worth a look just for the RockYou slideshow in the Language Arts Examples.

An humourous entry from Firda, the WeblogWannabe. Guess this result makes me a serious blogger - or perhaps a little sad - or simply a balanced person???

Thanks to Michael for the tip!

Like many others in the ICT in education field, 2004 has been the year of the Blog! Most of the discussions I’ve had with teachers and teacher groups has included some level of discussion around what blogs are, how to set them up, and how they can be used in an educational context.
Blogmeister is the most recent blogging software that I’ve come across that has been designed specifically for education. It has been created by David Warlick of the Landmark Project (another site well worth a browse for teachers!!!!)
Back to Blogmeister, an online blogging tool explicitly designed with teachers and students in mind, where the teacher can evaluate, comment on, and finally publish students’ blog articles in a controlled environment. Unfortunately, it can only be used by US teachers at present, as it requires a School ID in order to set up an account.
However, it is well worth looking at this site and reading some of the background information. There is some useful thinking about the process of using blogs in classrooms, and links to a number of teacher blogs (which I’m sure will continue to grow!)