Weblog of Wesley Fryer

I found a reference to Technorati on Lawrence Lessig’s blog this evening, figured out what it was and got signed up. When I searched for references to my own blog, I found a link to my longtime friend Eric’s blog — which I had not previously known about! If you want to read some staunchly Republican political opinions, Eric’s blog is a great place to go!

To me blogging really epitomizes the fundamental change in the way information is shared that the Internet has ushered in. I like Lessig’s analysis in The Future of Ideas of the TV as broadcast technology, but the Internet as having fundamentally end-to-end design, where the intelligence is supposed to be at either end of the communication chain. Too often in education I think we have looked at technology, including the personal computer and the “information superhighway,” as just another content delivery mechanism– a more efficient way to dump “stuff” into the heads of students.

As interactive communication tools, blogs offer so much more than a broadcast delivery model. They offer the authentic opportunity for dynamic give and take, on a global scale, without the need or even thought of getting “a publisher’s permission” for that opportunity. I think more teachers should encourage and even require their students to blog. I read this evening that some firms are estimating that approx 10% of Internet users now read blogs. I wonder how many are blogging themselves? Blogcount.com (http://www.dijest.com/bc/) has some interesting numbers on this– obviously this answer is a moving target.