Clay Burell has done a masterful job
of launching and publicizing Students 2.0,
the new student group blog. It has been less than a month since the launch
of Students 2.0 and it already is in the same Technorati
arena as LeaderTalk, EduBlog Insights, The Blue Skunk
Blog, and other edublogosphere favorites. The Students 2.0 blog
notes in its sidebar:
We are students: the ones who come to school every day, raise our hands with
safe questions, and keep our heads down. Except, now we have a voice – a strong
voice – to share our ideas through a global network.
A global platform for aggregated K-12 student voice? I love it!
Clay’s got his work cut out for him. As I’ve learned with
LeaderTalk, sustaining initial momentum and enthusiasm can be
difficult. Also, I think he needs more authors (maybe Sylvia Martinez and others can help?) and
he’s going to have start thinking about a succession plan. Who will replace
these students when they graduate? Will we follow this initial group of bloggers
into postsecondary education (Higher
Ed 2.0?) and beyond? The challenges are both daunting and
fascinating.
Clay, I hope you’re at NECC this year so I can
shake your hand. Nice work! Kudos also to the students. They are off to a great
start. May their voices become numerous and powerful…
Thanks Scott (and as I’ve said a number of times on my blog, thanks for being, along with Scott Schwister, one of the very few to support this idea when conceived way back in June – talk about ripple effects!).
Re: your questions: I’ve already addressed the graduation question in my “Belated Reflection on the Students 2.0 Experience” (http://beyond-school.org/2007/12/29/a-belated-reflection-on-the-students-20-experience/)
but to sum up,
1. Graduates of s2oh will continue to write for it. Their dispatches from the post-high school world can only add value as bridges into the realities of college (or non-college) life, and reflections on the same for students and adult readers alike. (Really, how could we say goodbye to Sean, Kevin, and Anthony after six short months?)
2. Getting more staff writers for s2oh is a high priority. (Sylvia Martinez, by the way, already helped me find the first batch of writers, along with Diane Cordell (http://dmcordell.blogspot.com) Carolyn Foote (http://futura.edublogs.org), and Chris Watson (http://watsoncommon.blogspot.com).)
Any readers of any age who know a student already blogging with regularity – and quality – are invited to contact us on the “Contribute” page of Students 2.0. They don’t have to be “edubloggers” per se, just good writers with the ability to reflect about their experiences in education. They can also contact me at my own blog (email linked there).
3. We will be tugging your sleeve, Scott, for some words of wisdom based on your early travels with LeaderTalk.
4. On a side note, the launch itself was a learning experience about network marketing, and how it can be used to generate a message. I’m hoping to find a few others who see that this can be duplicated for political/educational purposes aimed at influencing politicians, voters, and the “education industrial complex” (to quote somebody on Will R’s recent “End of Year Dreaming” post).
So far, my post about it has been met with silence. That doesn’t mean I’m wrong, to me; it just means either the right people haven’t read it or, if they have, they read it at the wrong time 😉
I’m convinced we can hold a few feet to the fire re: NCLB, the textbook industry, the ETS and College Board, and more, in a series of regular campaigns requiring little more than bookmarking a post to del.icio.us, digg, stumbleupon, etc, in a short time-frame.
You saw the potential of s2oh. Do you see what I’m saying about the potential political power of the educational networks of Twitterers, Ning-ers (Steve Hargadon, I’ll be in touch again soon!), and similar networks?
Happy New Year, Scott 🙂
Hey, did you design your header?
Just noticed the yellow letters spell “D-I-R-E”. Anybody else ever mention that?
Pretty cool 😛
Just browsing the internet. You have a very, very interesting blog.