Category Archives: Weblog as Power Tool

We can learn what we want to learn

The action of writing a weblog can provide an entirely new vision of self-paced distance learning. Since it is self-paced and self-actuated, the results will vary from blogger to blogger.

As a blogger, I am constantly getting these “aha!” moments where I discover a pattern that will have profound effects on future events.

The constant research that goes into blogging provides a dizzying array of resources to draw upon. This means that I can sit here in the early hours of the morning, analyzing hundreds of articles until I find a thread that leads in a direction I wish to explore. Once the thread is found, it is often only moments before I am able to reach a conclusion about something I have never investigated before.

I can then Google the net to see if anyone else has come to this conclusion. Sometimes they have, sometimes not. At first, I was disappointed to find that someone like Joi Ito, Clay Shirky or Rebecca Blood had voiced the same thought years before. It was like coming up with a philosophical approach to science and finding that Richard Feynman had lectured about it forty years ago.

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14-year-old Cecile DuBois brought the light of public scrutiny into her Los Angeles classroom when she wrote in her weblog about her teacher ridiculing her in front of other students. I wrote a post on this affair and so did many others.

Now her mother, Cathy Seipp, has written an article for the National Review on what has happened in the ensuing days. This is the beginning of a paradigm shift that is likely to change some venerable institutions.

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Cecile DuBois has run into an ignorant teacher who is more interested in humiliating her for her views than in teaching English. You or your children may have had the same experience, so you might be encouraged by the support Cecile has received.

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The good Commissar is in rare form with his Top Ten Rules for Blogging. With tongue firmly wedged in cheek, he has created another unique blend of satirical humor, uncommon sense, and cautionary advice. The last bit was probably handed … Continue reading →