Pro blogging?

As part of this blogging assignment, I'm supposed to list three "professional" blogs somewhere on this site. And it got me thinking - what exactly is a professional blog?

We all know what a professional is: an expert in their field. Generally we equate degrees with professionals. But no one is getting a degree in blogging at this university, and on the Internet, anyone can claim to be an expert.

For instance, in Alan November's book "Web Literacy for Educators," he tells the story of the 14-year-old "lawyer" who gave free legal advice to anyone who e-mailed him to ask for it. Maybe this kid was really smart. Maybe he'd watched a lot of "Judge Judy" and picked up enough legal mumbo jumbo to navigate the court systems. He was even smart enough to make up a degree to give him seemingly legitimate credentials. Dozens of people fell for his joke.

Sure, we can investigate to see who owns a blog, but really, what degree gives you right to be "more of an expert" at something than anyone else? Some doctor graduated last in his class. Just because you're a teacher, that doesn't mean you're any good at teaching.

Blogs are also meant to be accessible to everyone, so that every person can publish his or her own voice. If you only listen to the professional blogger voices, aren't you sort of dishonoring the system?

I'm not saying listen to every post that every person creates. Certainly some ideas have more merit than others. I'm just saying, "professional" is a term that has no place in the blogging world.

Edutopia: A week in the life...

For class, I was asked to read this article. It discusses an alternative teaching style where students stay after school to continue learning skill sets they'll need for life (like language skills), but also to experience the "real world". Citizen Schools gives students in the middle school a chance to intern at local businesses, potentially seeing what it's like to be a doctor, lawyer, an engineer, etc.

The program gives pre-teens the self confidence they need to do well in school and fosters an academic mindset, reducing a student's risk for dropping out. Last year in a communications class, I learned that recent studies have given teachers a better chance of predicting which students will drop out by the age of 9. This means that we can target students at risk of not completing their education and help them however possible to stay in school. The Citizen Schools program is helping to do just that.

It's clearly a valuable way to to be spending our schools' resources. So why aren't more schools doing it? Or, more radically, where are the schools that teach only in this style of learning? If we make learning more hands on and a more welcoming environment, maybe we can eliminate students dropping out all together.

I know there are those who need the structure of traditional schooling, but what's wrong with mixing and matching? Why can't during three days of the week, our students be taught as per usual, and then during the remaining two, make room for internships and hands on learning? There's got to be a compromise somewhere. We don't need to cater to one learning style or the other.

Introductions

There's no real interesting way to do these things, unless you're exceptionally witty or creative. Which I have my moments, but let's face it; introductions are always fairly stale. I can't splash as much as I'd like to.

So real simply, I go by Woody. Like in Toy Story. Not in a dirty way. I'm a student at the University of Maine, majoring in secondary education and concentrating in English. So, one day, I'll be a high school English teacher. This does not you give you permission to correct my grammar. I am always right. Always.

This particular blog was created for an Education and Technology class. We've been asked to respond to articles and concepts within a blog to help us become more familiar with what they're like. My teacher is rather obsessed with Will Richardson's book "Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms." I can see why. It's an interesting, easy read and comes from real-life examples.

Most likely, this space will be used to review other blogs and blogging techniques and uses. For instance, look forward to hearing about Clay Burrell's blog Beyond School. It will also have some class assignments within, because that is really the purpose for this blog. No doubt, my readers will mostly be students within the class and family members who are so obsessed that they follow just to feel closer to me. However, if you do not fall into either category, please leave me comments! I'd love to hear your suggestions and insight to my writings.