It’s time for a serious evaluation of the education blogosphere.

We got to this point in a roundabout way. David Warlick suggested that we ask educators, “What blogs do you read?” In Don’t Ask This Question, Part I I suggested that the question was irrelevant to effective teaching. In Don’t Ask This Question, Part II I established that the question does more harm than good. Warlick responded with “Is the Educational Journal Dead?” an instructive piece that demonstrates exactly why we need to evaluate blogging.

We need to look at the value of blogging in education because, in truth, to this point we’ve done a disservice to ourselves, to our students and to the medium by neglecting to analyze it properly. If blogging is to have a real impact on education, we need to move away from treating it simply as a system of beliefs - an unsubstantiated theoretical approach that’s heavy on hope and light on evidence - and instead give it the comparative analysis it deserves. We need to take it seriously.

Blogging is, as writers and readers will tell you, about conversations. It’s a buzzword, but it’s not entirely meaningless; blogs indeed generate dialogue and the exchanges of ideas. They provide a medium for logged debate that can be referenced and, when appropriate, applied. This seems like a good thing. How could one argue the value of a medium that facilitates information sharing?

Well, we need to, and that argument needs to be based on evidence, not rhetoric.

The basic value of blogging as a communication tool has been demonstrated by corporations, political campaigns and hobbyists of all sorts. They’ve used blogs to provide easily-accessible information to their constituencies. But we know that not everyone uses the internet - just 69.2% of ~302 million US citizens use a connection [Nielsen-Netratings] and the majority of those don’t use blogs. Gartner claims that blogging will peak this year around 100 million worldwide writers; based on current user data, we’re going to plateau until internet use changes markedly. Bloggers have delivered value in many niches, but it is irresponsible to consider it a panacea for education, especially for underserved populations.

The communicative value, however, is different from the educational value of blogs. Unfortunately for the stakeholders in the education process, the latter issue is more difficult to prove.

We don’t prove it by insisting indiscriminately that conversations matter, especially when we define the term so vaguely. We don’t prove it by citing students’ familiarity with MySpace, instant messengers and cell phones or labeling them as “Digital Natives” without defining it, measuring it and applying it to our mission - then following up the result to see if it’s better than the alternatives. We don’t prove it with meaningless jargon or hollow rhetoric that rests on unsubstantiated claims that those in the know “get” and any critics must not understand.

And we certainly don’t prove it by constantly re-framing the debate at our convenience. This is arguably the most serious issue facing the blogosphere at large and it isn’t absent from education blogging. Warlick gives an example regarding my opinion of scholarly journals compared to blogs:

I’m not sure why people seem to assume that if one advocates one thing that it necessarily means the rejection of another.

The issue is relevance, not rejection. The level of scholarship in the average journal provides more value than the average blog. But re-framing the debate allows Warlick to avoid exactly the accountability that we need to face. He continues:

The fact is that Matthew demonstrates, through his disagreement with my article, the value of an immature publishing scheme. The casualness of the medium makes it difficult to present a complete scenario for a position. But, it is what’s not said that leads to conversations (like this) where fuller understanding and even new and valuable ideas can be found or even grown.

This flawed, flexible logic is indicative of the way too many educators justify the use of blogging. Blogging doesn’t need to be casual; the medium can’t be blamed for incomplete thoughts. One of the strengths of blogging is our ability to cite/embed relevant support for our arguments directly in the text. Blogging isn’t a timed test, either; we can take our time to craft a proper argument, edit it at will and then update it later if we’ve made a mistake or have more to add. We can’t confuse bad writing and bad argumentation with the limits of a medium - and we certainly can’t pretend that such a casual approach is an efficient way to advance discussion.

The point is that we don’t look critically enough at blogging in education. How can we change this?

We need to define the problem. Companies don’t invent packaging and then design a product to fit, but that’s how we approach the integration of blogging and other new media into our curricula. We need to identify a specific need and then create a solution for that need with the goal of meeting a certain outcome [or one of a series of possible outcomes].

We have to delineate the differences between blogging for professional communication and blogging to facilitate learning because they aren’t the same thing. If we aren’t focused, we’re just moving around aimlessly and pretending that we’re moving forward.

We need to be able to measure solutions. We can’t determine whether a solution is an improvement if we can’t measure it in a meaningful way. Having conversations? Vague. Learning digitally? Meaningless. Engaging students? As opposed to what, and how is that engagement better?

There are quite a few scholars and foundations who are dancing around these measures - like the Just Think Foundation or new media gurus such as Danah Boyd - but we haven’t gotten to the heart of the matter. Even The MacArthur Foundation, which just released a widely-publicized competition that offers $2 million for advances in social media, is focusing almost wholly on relatively unquestioned processes. We need these individuals and organizations - they do important work - but we also need more evidence regarding specific uses of the media.

We need to compare solutions. A solution to a problem isn’t valid unless we compare its effectiveness to alternatives. It has to be better than what we’re doing and better than what else we could be doing. This is a basic concept of utility - consider Blackboard software that has allowed students to effectively interact with each other and their instructor outside of the classroom. The software has provided and created an internet-based method of interaction that no other alternative can match in terms of ease and reach. But this element is largely absent from the blogging [and education technology] debate. The edtech sector isn’t alone in its negligence, though.

A recent study in the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine found that preschoolers preferred food wrapped in McDonald’s packaging compared to identical food in unbranded wrappers. An interesting study? Absolutely not - they compared McDonald’s to the unbranded, not to a broad array of options [the above link details the methodology]. That a child prefers packaging with which he is familiar and associates a pleasant feeling isn’t newsworthy - it’s common sense. But how does the McDonald’s-branded wrapper compare to food wrapped in that child’s favorite color? To other popular images like Spongebob Squarepants?

Would it surprise you if I posited that adult male respondents would report better-tasting food in packaging that shows a beautiful model as opposed to images of genocide? Of course not - but what about that model compared to McDonald’s packaging? If we are to go beyond common sense, we need comparative analysis.

We won’t know the full effect of branding in this case - or the real value of blogging in education - without this comparative analysis. We need sound evidence, not anecdotes masquerading as research. Saying that blogging is “more engaging” than old media doesn’t cut it. We need meaningful evidence and we need to compare it.

We need to take the evidence seriously. We can’t hail a technological advance as a positive development if the results don’t bear that out. And if they are positive, can we reproduce them? What conditions need to be met in order to get that result? What’s the cost/benefit of a solution in a given set of circumstances compared to its alternatives? Are we creating value in a way that’s unique and worth more than what we’re missing due to the opportunity cost?

If we get answers to these questions, we just might find that blogging and other tech developments aren’t as valuable as some claim - and then we can focus on more effective solutions. But first we need to ask the questions and commit to trusting the answers.

And what do we need from teachers and administrators?

We need a change in attitude and a commitment to critical analysis.

We need to approach the evaluation of technology and its implementation with a rational mind.

We need to demand evidence obtained through focused, disinterested inquiry.

We need to be intellectually responsible.

I look forward to evidence that supports the use of some of the interesting, exciting brain candy that the imaginative Techno-Wonkas throw at us day after day. Blogging might just be that Everlasting Gobstopper that sates education’s sweet-tooth. But rather than making unfounded claims about the medium’s potential, let’s commit to a serious, purposeful skepticism that keeps our stakeholders in mind. Until then, conversations are little more than entertainment.

I’ll begin laying the foundation for clearly-defined utility for blog software in education in Part IV of this series.

RELATED ARTICLES:

• Don’t Ask This Question, Part I
• Don’t Ask This Question, Part II