2.2

The Blogs as Resources section of the chapter spells out some criteria for assessing blogs for "accuracy and trustworthiness" (Richardson 2010, p. 37). He articulates in detail principles which are key to information literacy in general, whether the source is print or online, blog or other site; they are particularly specific to blogs, but I believe he does a good job of explaining them and the reasons for them, and I'm gratified that they're close to what I've been teaching. Some of the folks he features in the chapter have retired or moved on to other things.

Here are some of the key steps from the section as I've highlighted them, plus my reflections:

1. "Try to find out as much as you can about the author of the Weblog. See if there is an 'About' link that will lead to a name..." He mentions Google, and identifying background, profession, authority, and domain publisher. I've enjoyed a side trip into domain registration and learning about ICANN (the text mentions its predecessor InterNIC).  I find more and more I like to use Quora or Stack Overflow for crowd-sourced opinions on sites and tools, including WhoIs services.
2. "Next, you may want to find out what kind of a reputation the blogger has among his peers." He mentions Technorati's "Authority" rating, as well as sites linking to a blog.
3. Blogroll on the blog, especially to determine bias or agenda; other posts on the blog, and accuracy of analysis or synthesis from source links. This last is one of my favorites for evaluating whether the blogger is providing value-added or just content-farming.

Critical thinking as to authority (and to relevancy and other factors we'll explore in this text or elsewhere) is a key 21st-century skill our students need to acquire for college and career readiness as well as for effective citizenship.

Begin with the end in mind...

The truth is, I started reading this book by reading the Epilogue. I would never do that with fiction, just like I avoid film spoilers, but with this book I thought it would give me context on where we were headed -- and it did. Richardson spells out a vision for an inspiring, productive teacher who truly helps his students learn and makes progress alongside his colleagues by making wise use of available technologies. I'm glad I started my approach this way, because it gave me a context of the ideal into which to fit the details provided in each chapter as we proceed.

2.1

I've been using one of the Blogger gadgets, the Link List, to catch links as I go from reading Richardson's text, calling them "Related Sites". When I find broken links or 404s from the text links I sometimes check for an updated link and use that instead -- it's not surprising that some of the tinyurls for student work sites would no longer function. Although some of the tinyurls failed, searching for them led me to handy online lists of links from the text, like the one from one of Karen Gallagher-Edlund's (McCaskey East HS, Lancaster PA) wikis at http://edw2010.wikispaces.com/Online+class+notes.

As Richardson talked about the many uses of Weblogs in schools,

• class portal
• online filing cabinet
• e-portfolio
• collaborative space
• knowledge management and articulation
• school Web site,

I was struck by how often we now employ other Web 2.0 tools for these functions. Tools like Edmodo and Digi[cation], as well as wikis and our official FPS websites, provide for many of these uses while offering other advantages, such as enhanced privacy or more options for collaboration.