This post is a thought BUT also a supporting entry for Arash Sigarichi and Mojtaba Saminejad. It is unbelievable in my view how this blogging community is growing, developing a true identiy and of course what happens this: Two Iranians get imprisoned for blogging… then the week before I read a story about the CNN editor resigning.
Then I think of my international school ASIJ and how as a group educators we really have not allowed the whole blog issue come into our conversations about different ways for kids to express themselves. Explored it as a current medium of expression. The students blog of course but in isolation within their peer group. How as educators are we facilitating our rich knowledge of ideas and concepts to our students within the sphere of blogs. Where are the conversations about Arash Sigarichi and Mojtaba Saminejad ? Again a level of frustration arises in my mind. The disconnect that often, not always and depending on the context, is occuring from movements in the real world, contempory digital mediums and forms of experession. I am not saying replace all our forms of communication (word processing, speeches, oral presentations and multimedia presentations ppt actualy this is a whole other topic on its own…..but we have a responsability to share, harness, explore, discuss and facilitate this medium within the context of our school and with our students. Have you: teacher read your student blogs= why do they blog?

Imagine… kids start using their blogs as places for research, quote blogs as sources, get their daily fair of news from blogs….share their feelings, discover philosophies in blogs….create their point of reference from blogs……remember the world blogs…. at some point, at some level as international school educators we need to explore, discuss (if not only amongst ourselves at first as a starting point) how blogs and education can find a common ground for both ourselves and our students. We can always teach about our past, and at some point we need to be able to teach about the future…. hey there the future is actually NOW!

John @ISETS