Wow. It’s a strangely comforting/discomforting confusing feeling when someone you respect takes so much time to deconstruct something you’ve written. Nice, in a sense, that what you wrote seemed worth the effort to respond to in such detail, not so comforting that I took such a thrashing! 🙂 But let me pick up on a couple of issues, and see if I can’t speak a little clearer on them, and why i think they’re important. Here’s Stephen’s post.
and now, an attempt to put enough here to make this understandable without making it 20 miles long… I want to be clear at the outset, that the orginal conversation that i was describing was a real one, and the arguments that I was refuting were genuine. I know the blogevangelist in question. And this was not meant to tar the name of some very good blogevangelists (which is why I changed the title of the last post) because most of them are perfectly reasoned in their promotion of blogging.
dave Blogging (in its wordpress type form) is probably a transitional technology.
- Stephen Well yes, of course it is transitional technology. Name me one thing launched on the internet over the last ten years that isn’t transitional technology.
- dave’s response agreed Stephen. But you and I are fully aware of the transitionality of technology, there are many, many people who are not aware of this. And, when they think of tools ‘for democracy’ or ‘for teaching’ they tend to compare them to things that have much longer lifespans. This is a very simple premise that can be layed on the floor of a discussion, you yourself agree that it’s true. When people are as fired up as my friend was, it never hurts to start with an easy premise.
- Stephen continues “Blogging allows for only a pretty rudimentary interactivity.” Well yeah, but it allows for a whole lot more interactivity than, say, plain ordinary web pages (aka shovelware). and and people are working hard to make that possible. People, I might add, in the blogging community – and not their critics.
- Dave’s response Agreed. But the comparison that you are making is between internet technologies… The discussion i was having was comparing it to a classroom and live discussion. I agree that people are working hard to make it possible, which is why i linked to ELGG. But again, the person i was debating with is not online at all now… so the comparison of ‘better’ was not super important. It was the legitimacy of his saying that it wasn’t perfect that I was acknowledging. And it isn’t perfect. It does many, many good things. But people who’ve been turned off will focus on the negative, which i acknowledged.
dave It can(blogs), very often, lack accountability
- actually, i won’t really go into this one too far, I failed to link to the correct article in my post and Stephen assumed i meant Bill O’reilly and I meant Tim O’reilly. Stephen did make an excellent point about traditional media not exactly being perfectly accountable either. This is true, but they are, at least to some degree, more accountable. (I wish i was being ironic by mentioning Bill O’reilly, but i’m not that cool 🙂 )
dave It is not, by any means, a silver bullet
- Stephen’s response where is that pundit out there who is actually saying blogs will satisfy every need of every person?
- dave’s response It was my conversation partner’s perception that he’d been told just that. That blogging was the key to democracy. I’m guessing he oversimplified, but again, simply agreeing to the fact that it isn’t, creates a comfort zone with the other participant that you aren’t a fanatic. And he was talking about a specific presentation and person. People do think that people say this. It ususally is said by detractors “Yeah, you blogging people just think that it will solve everything.” It’s a facile argument that needs a pat response. Just saying “i know that blogging won’t cure cancer,” is often enough to make people slow down long enough to listen to the good side of the story.
dave No one (at least not me) is suggesting that blogging should replace good teaching
- stephen He wrote alot of stuff… I encourage you to read it. Essentially he said it can. And i think that he took my comments a little out of context (as well as suggesting that my comments weren’t HONEST. which is a little hard to take)
- dave’s response yes. I agree. blogs are good for many things. A little more clarity on what i meant by ‘replace good teaching’. The person i was talking to is reputed by everyone to be a great teacher (better than good). What I was suggesting to him was not that blogging should replace the good teaching that he is currently doing. (i suggested ways it could be added)
The rest of his response covers many of the many good things that blogging (and associated techonologies) can do for people. Anyone familiar with my work will know that I can’t help but agree with him.
- Blogging (in its wordpress type form) is probably a transitional technology.
- It can, very often, lack accountability
- It is not, by any means, a silver bullet
- No one (at least not me) is suggesting that blogging should replace good teaching
- There are still a number of very important social justice issues around blogging that stop it from being the IDEAL democracy tool.
- Yes. Many of the most vocal bloggers will probably one day work for major media corps.
I think that, in response to my premises, stephen’s post gives a nice outline of the many nice things that blogging can do. I’m not entirely sure if he thinks that I’m being an apologist by using the above premises in a discussion. I hope not.
This sentence does concern me
- I see no reason why supporters of blogs in learning should roll over before the critics in an effort to be reasonable.
By my count, Stephen actually agreed with 5 out of 6 of the premises (i think he disagreed with the number 4, but i could be wrong) He then went on to elaborate on the powers in blogging in almost exactly the same way that I did in the conversation that I had on Wednesday night. (not surprising considering how much of his work i read 🙂 )
So here’s my question back to you Stephen, as you agree with the premises (even consider some of them facile Well yes, of course it is transitional technology.) then why not just come out and say them in a conversation if it settles the ire and lets the second part of that conversation happen? Is that ‘rolling over’ or is it just a productive conversation style?
I do see the need to roll over to be reasonable, for the very reasons that you described the media revolution as useful. I would like to see more people get a voice, and the more people in decision making positions that I can convince, the more that might happen.
The phrase “roll over” merits more examination. As it was used in Stephen’s post, it implies ceding ground unnecessarily, or agreeing to things just to get along, not because we agree with them.
As you use it, however, it implies meeting your listener where they are. “Rolling over” in this context isn’t really rolling over — it suggests listening to your partner(s) in conversation, and framing your response in terms they are more likely to understand.
And this sounds a lot like teaching to me.