Blogs a-go-go – Feed me Seymour!

Originally posted Jun 18, 2009

I really enjoyed the blogging activity in EPSY 590NET!

My dog Dax, not so much.

My first edublog visit was to David Wiley’s Iterating Toward Openess Blog -A “blog about openness, open education, and open content.”

My first reaction was negative.  Although the blog looks clean, there isn’t a visual in sight, and I didn’t particularly like the layout. But alas, first impressions can be so wrong!

I clicked on the link to “History Lessons” and watched the presentation he just gave at the University of Saskatchewan.  Wow, this is up my alley. Open access is an area I am very, very interested in.  I loved the little history lesson, especially the bit about the Secret History of Open Access.  The spelling mistake in Saskatchewan bugged me a bit, but even Canadians misspell that one so he is forgiven especially because I admire his mission. I immediately subscribed. So much for first impressions!

Flag of New Brunswick

 

My next stop was to Stephen Downes OLD Daily . Again there was not much visual appeal but the layout was simple and I know of Stephen Downes, a fellow Canuck from New Brunswick.

Stephen works for the National Research Council Institute for Information Technology, and his Online Learning Daily (OLD) covers the latest in online learning with his own commentary. The OLD Daily became an interesting read and I soon found myself subscribing.

Key Board Cat

Next up was the Cool Cat Teacher Blog Viki Davis’ edublog.

Immediately, the name was appealing. Her blog was jam packed with info, maybe a bit overwhelmingly busy.

The first thing I read was  “Are traditional textbooks Dead?

I was engaged by this topic because I have some strong beliefs  about the subject.  I learned about the Curriki project, and will be reading more about it!

The textbook article stirred some emotions…
Textbooks are overpriced and have been for a long time. Why should a brand new hardcover book cost less than $20 and yet a textbook is almost always over $100?  Well, if you come to my office and see all the comp copies I have and the ones all over our school, you’ll know why. I post all of my notes online; there are no books to buy for any of my courses.

The World is Open

OK, I have a confession to make: I am also a recent communications textbook author. It was a collaborative project I worked on with a group of teachers. I like to write. There was a lot of learning in the process.

As far as buying it? I wouldn’t mind Abbie Hoffman’s advice.

I subscribed to Cool Cat too.

Onward I surfed to Worm Talk And Slug Speak.
The blog of a Wheaton College Old English, medieval literature professor .

I liked the look of this blog and can see that he is using the blog to discuss a number of things that are of interest to him and his students. I liked his light-hearted approach and enjoyed reading about his find of the BINGO game left in his class. We used to do these bingo buzzword games in our Liberal Arts meetings. I liked his blog but found the references a bit too inside to make it a must subscribe, It’s worth a look though for ideas on things to post and ways to be user friendly.

Last stop- Bill Kerr’s blog.  I found this blog easy to follow and visually interesting. Loved the cartoon that he links to on Amusing Ourselves to Death comparing Huxley to Orwell. It reminded me that I had downloaded a copy of an open source 1954 BBC production of 1984 which I haven’t had a chance to watch yet…I wonder why?

For anyone interested here is the  YouTube link to  1984 –BBC style

I liked a number of posts Bill made, so I’d dare say one of his purposes is to reach people like me who are interested in education, and technology. I subscribed.

How do they compare? Well it depends what you are looking for. If you want a lot about a subject like openness in Education- That would be David Wiley’s Iterating Toward Openess but you’ll find this subject on Stephen’s OLD Daily and Cool Cat blogs too. If you want  info on a whole lot of topics, you might try Cool Cat. If you want a personality, I’d recommend Bill Kerr, Worm Talk and Stephen Downes.

And if you want to consider a different kind of blogging, you could try Video Blogging.

As always learning is a two way street.