12.22.06

I was told there’d be no math on this exam.

Posted in Tools & Resources, Topical at 9:23 am by jon yang

Blogs aren’t just used by (aspiring) writers, successful businesses, and your grandma, they are also being used in a variety of ways as educational resources. How many ways are they being used as educational resources? Good question, you in the back.

The answer to that qustion is “infinite” or “infinite plus one” if you want to get cheeky.

For a sampling of all those brilliant educational blogs, here’s a list of “The Top 100 Education Blogs”. The list focuses the highlight on blogs that are being used in a variety of ways; from sites focused toward the community of teachers, to blogs that ponder the impact and vision of education policies.

I wish they had blogs back when I attended college (not that long ago in my mind but a long time ago as measured by years). I’d throw up a collection of personal journal type blogs from each university. It’ll be like the Real World but told through unaffiliated individuals on each campus. We could even give it a go and try to stereotype them at first, to see how they get along. A blog like this would allow us to see a person progress from freshman to senior year — or more likely, super senior year.

You could have all these first person perspectives of what it’s like to attend a certain university and potential attendees of that particular school could take a look and gain some insight on what the experience might be like. I’ve seen a whole series of books that are thematically similar to this idea. A sort of Cliff Notes or Lonely Planet for colleges; my blog versions would be uncut, unabridged, and unedited. From the mouth of babes as it were.

Students already on campus might gain a bit from these journals as well. I’d weed out all the Xanga-licious “This is my life, omg, I just had a revelation, I want to be a psychology major!” type blogs, but aim for well composed sites that actually try to articulate the college experience as a whole, not just the (melo)drama each college student endures.

Yes, that’s what I’d do to change the world. Create a network of blogs for universities. “I have a dream…”

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