In October, I posted on academic blogging. Now, I wish to sidetrack to classroom blogging.

When looking at educational rationales for incorporating blogs into classes, we see the notions of student participation, ownership, autonomy, motivation, and learning. Participation can fit any relational model, but often it is spoken of in terms of autonomy, freeing students from teacher control, suggesting a preference for a communal sharing model instead of an authority ranking model (see Alan Fiske), although they are not exclusive. Whether the student or the academic blogospher, a constant refrain is that of "connecting." Will Richardson at weblogg-ed talks about "Connecting for life." Barbara Gannings promotes classroom blogging for "the connecting, the discussing, the collaborating it fosters" (September 24, 2005). George Siemens asserts that a new learning model of connectivism is required for a digital world, a model that promotes connections as enabling a continual flow of information rather than a master of today's content:

The pipe is more important than the content within the pipe. Our ability to learn what we need for tomorrow is more important than what we know today. A real challenge for any learning theory is to actuate known knowledge at the point of application. When knowledge, however, is needed, but not known, the ability to plug into sources to meet the requirements becomes a vital skill. As knowledge continues to grow and evolve, access to what is needed is more important than what the learner currently possesses.

Returning to academic blogging, it is not possible to keep up with the exponential increase of information. It also is not possible to keep up with the exponential increase in connections. To be continued.