The blogosphere is developing a stratosphere. And soon, the educational blog layer may be subject to global warming of even more hot words.
The NEA has announced plans to develop its own blog – one that you can respond to with comments. The blog will be developed by the union’s magazine, NEA Today. The NEA is the larges teacher union in the United States. Other teacher unions have posted excellent blogs on their websites. The AFT has a noteworthy blog about No Child Left Behind. Also, the UFT, teachers union for New York City, publishes Edwize, about ssues affecting teachers. A prominent blog, The Education Wonks began asking the NEA months ago when they would follow the lead of these two unions. The NEA has a huge website, and certainly the resources to enable such a valuable means of communication.
You currently have the ability to speak your voice on a number of educational issues by posting comments to prominent blogs. Undoubtedly, the NEA blog will attract a lot of attention, and a lot of commentary. Imagine telling the NEA how you feel about No Child Left Behind, vouchers, charter schools, home schooling, school safety, standardized testing, special education. I suspect that the whole world of American education will be watching!
This has the potential to be a wonderful resource for discussion of educational issues, free speech, and sharing of ideas. At first the blog will be launched with no commentary. I hope that they eventually allow for free commentary, within the usual limits for profanity and harassment. I suspect that if they have the commentary open they will have a huge and well informed response. Probably too big for the average blog commentary.
Maybe after developing that blog they should expand their existing forum, and link it to the blog. Imagine a forum where rank and file members, teachers, parents, the general public, administrators, school board members, and students can all read each other’s points of view and educate one another.
You can (and should) read blogs about education and post comments. There is a huge national discussion taking place about educational reform, and blog commentaries have a lot to say. Be informed, and let your voice be heard!