Dangerously Irrelevant

Larry Cuban says:

Teaching, then, whether in graduate schools or kindergartens – in elite universities or slum schools – binds all of us together. In teaching we display our views of knowledge and learning, we advertise our ideas, how we reason, and how we struggle with moral choices whether we intend to or not. To teach is to enlist in a technical, morally based vocation…

Now change that to:

Blogging, then, whether in graduate schools or kindergartens – in elite universities or slum schools – binds all of us together. In blogging we display our views of knowledge and learning, we advertise our ideas, how we reason, and how we struggle with moral choices whether we intend to or not. To blog is to enlist in a technical, morally based vocation…

Edubloggers, do you see blogging as an extension of your teaching? If not, should you?

On the flip side, do you see teaching as an extension of your blogging?

Image credit: In order to exist online, we must write ourselves into being

[Hat tip to Larry Ferlazzo]

Well, 2010 is over; hope it was a good one for you. For those who may be interested, here are a few statistics about this blog from the past year…

Overview stats

• 24,887 Feedburner subscribers (plus another 886 e-mail subscribers)
• 268,975 visits
• 177,437 unique visitors (64.64% were new visitors)
• 491,102 pageviews
• 152,999 Compete traffic rank
• 153,974 Alexa traffic rank (USA)
• 393,504 Alexa traffic rank (global)
• 20 PostRank Education
• 5 Google PageRank

2010 posts that had the most unique pageviews last year

1. Tools for school – Digital document annotation on an iPad, iPod Touch, or laptop (5,218)
2. If we were really serious about educational technology (4,682)
3. 12 videos to spark educators’ thinking (4,562)
4. We can’t let educators off the hook (3,097)
5. Videos – I hate my teacher (2,828)

Earlier posts that had the most unique pageviews last year

1. Video – Did You Know? 4.0 (8,200)
2. Don’t teach your kids this stuff. Please? (4,601)
3. Bolman & Deal frameworks (4,193)
4. Gone Fischin’ (2,813)
5. Top 20 TED Talks podcasts for busy school administrators (2,769)

2010 posts that generated the most comments

1. We can’t let educators off the hook (139)
2. Should students be allowed to use cell phones on all assignments and assessments? (82)
3. Educators need learning advocacy, not technology advocacy (72)
4. If we were really serious about educational technology (64)
5. Why don’t we care about the Hindu kid? Or the Jewish employee? (62)

2010 posts that were shared the most on Twitter

1. If we were really serious about educational technology (352)
2. 12 videos to spark educators’ thinking (316)
3. Calling all bloggers! – Leadership Day 2010 (249)
4. We spend 80% of our classroom time on the skills needed for 10% of our jobs (153)
5. We can’t let educators off the hook (143)

2010 posts that were shared the most on Facebook

1. If we were really serious about educational technology (222)
2. We spend 80% of our classroom time on the skills needed for 10% of our jobs (78)
3. Video – Race to Nowhere trailer (54)
4. We can’t let educators off the hook (53)
5. Struggling with your dissertation? and Reclaiming the language [guest post] (50, tie)

Visitors who left the most comments (not including those who didn’t leave their full names)

1. Mark Hauck
2. Jerrid Kruse
3. Carl Anderson
4. Russ Goerend
5. Gary Stager

I’m big in… (countries)

1. United States
2. Canada
3. United Kingdom
4. Australia
5. India

I’m big in… (cities)

1. New York
2. Sydney
3. Chicago
4. London
5. Minneapolis

Top traffic sources

1. Google / organic (23%)
2. Direct (22%)
3. Feedburner (11%)
4. Google / referral (4%)
5. Twitter (3%)

Browsers used by visitors

1. Firefox (35%)
2. Internet Explorer (31%)
3. Safari (17%)
4. Chrome (12%)
5. Other (5%)

Operating systems used by visitors

1. Windows
2. Macintosh
3. iPhone
4. iPad
5. Linux

It was a great year for me on the blog front. Thanks, everyone, for being loyal readers, active commenters, and helpful co-creators and sharers!

[oh, and check out Mind Dump; you might like that too!]

It’s time to vote for the 2010 Edublog Awards, the ‘Oscars of the education blogosphere.’ All votes are due by noon Eastern, December 14. Winners will be announced soon thereafter.

CASTLE nominees

CASTLE blogs - including this one - have been nominated in several categories:

• Best individual blog (Dangerously Irrelevant, School Finance 101)
• Best group blog (Connected Principals, LeaderTalk)
• Best new blog (Connected Principals)
• Most influential blog post (Dangerously Irrelevant: We can’t let educators off the hook)
• Best school administrator blog (Connected Principals, Dangerously Irrelevant) [this should be called ‘Best leadership blog’ instead]
• Best elearning / corporate education blog (Virtual School Meanderings)
• Best educational webinar series (Connected Principals)
  Best educational use of a social network (Connected Principals)
• Best use of a PLN (Connected Principals)
• Lifetime achievement (Scott McLeod)

There are scores of excellent sites from which to choose. Go check out the lists and vote for your favorites!

Lifetime Achievement award

Last year I was nominated for a Lifetime Achievement award. I said at that time that, while flattered, I had no business winning such an award ahead of many others that had gone before me (and were so pivotal to my own development as a blogger). I continue to stand by that statement.

David Warlick and Karl Fisch have won this award to date; both were superb choices. This year I was going to make a tough choice between either Will Richardson (last year’s runner-up) or Stephen Downes. Since Stephen isn’t on the list, I’m checking the box next to Will’s name. If you don’t agree with my choice, there are many other excellent candidates in this category, including some names that I should have put on last year’s list.

Happy voting!

These posts got the most web traffic on my two blogs in October 2010:

Dangerously Irrelevant

1. Videos – I hate my teacher
2. 12 videos to spark educators’ thinking
3. We can’t let educators off the hook
4. Will libraries still exist?
5. What I ask of SLA teachers [guest post]
6. How much math do you really need in everyday life?
7. Video – Did You Know? 4.0
8. What are our excuses, again, for not putting computers in the hands of our children?
9. Tools for school – Digital document annotation on an iPad, iPod Touch, or laptop
10. Bolman & Deal frameworks

Mind Dump

1. There’s a thin line between words and wounds
2. Only a rich white person would say something this stupid?
3. The most illiterate discussion ever regarding student learning?
4. Don’t hold grudges
5. When you argue with an idiot
6. It’s no wonder school-age students are still lugging home pounds of textbooks
7. Not a single suggestion for improving my teaching. Ever.
8. Steven Weber: Would I want my child in this classroom?
9. The Daily Show takes on the education crisis
10. America throws out some of the best innovators in the world

The documentary film Waiting for Superman debuted on September 24, 2010. To date it has only grossed $2.7 million at the box office.

Just in case you were wondering, however, between September 24 and October 20 there have been 246 posts made in the Huffington Post Education section. Of those posts, 76 of them (31%) have referenced the film in one way, shape, or form. The percentage of celebrity and/or politician posts at HuffPo that have referenced the film? Much, much higher.

A Google search brings up nearly 25 million results. In contrast, a search for NBC’s recent Education Nation series only brings up about 120,000.

What do you think is going on here? An outsized impact for a small documentary?

Are you an infrequent edublogger? Would you like to blog more but often have writer’s block?

If so, check out Melanie Holtsman’s Fall Blog Challenge. She has a list of weekly topics for you. Simply react to her prompts and tag each post (and tweet to @Holtsman) with the following hashtag:

#fallblogchallenge2010

What are you waiting for? Get your creative juices flowing and connect with other edubloggers. Great idea, Melanie!

I am absolutely delighted to announce that the Connected Principals blog is now a member of the CASTLE blog family. Connected Principals currently has 22 school administrators blogging about technology leadership and other topics. We are extremely excited to have these insightful school leaders join us!

Here are a few posts to get you started:

• Principals ARE teachers
• Who owns it?
• “They don’t get it”
• Khan Academy: Where does it fit?
• In schools of the future, students learn best by doing, vigorously and digitally
• Parents as partners

FYI, you can visit each of CASTLE’s blogs individually or you can subscribe to them all using our overall CASTLE blog RSS feed.

Next up for the CASTLE blog family: a Leadership for Social Justice blog. Happy reading!

Miguel Guhlin had an awesome post yesterday about being a courageous edublogger. Here are a couple of quotes:

I have found that discussing some topics usually ruffle feathers of those who fear free speech, openness and transparency. It’s as if by silencing others, they will eliminate the threat represented. Yet, if sharing ideas and information is the threat, then human beings will never be safe.

AND

What if what we need in education are more bloggers, unafraid to ask the hard questions and ruffle the feathers of those who, like career politicians, appear smooth as an oil slick in the Gulf?

Happy reading! (oh, and Miguel’s the one on the left)

Here’s a quote for you:

… I’ve decided to hang up my blogging hat. I was a fool, and I didn’t anticipate how this kind of thing could happen. As many of our readers and my students know, I’m opinionated and willing to push boundaries. This is what I think is the role of a professor, and blogging allowed me to do it in an informal and diverse manner. But I misunderstood the technology, and the consequences are devastating for me personally.

– Time to go, Todd Henderson, Professor of Law, University of Chicago

If a distinguished law professor at one of the most prestigious universities in the world doesn’t understand “the technology,” that’s probably indicative that most others don’t either.

Yet another reason why we should be educating our students on how to do this social media stuff rather than just blocking it…

Image credit: Walk away from me…

If you’re interested in educational policy issues and you’re not reading Dr. Bruce Baker, you should be. Bruce is the author of CASTLE’s school finance / policy blog, School Finance 101. The blogging that he’s done lately has been absolutely phenomenal (plus he’s inspired me to finally learn how to use GIS software). You also can follow Bruce on Twitter.

In other CASTLE blog news…

• Our 1to1 Schools group blog, headed by Nick Sauers, focuses on P-12 school laptop initiatives and just topped 800 subscribers.
• LeaderTalk, the nation’s first group blog written by school leaders for school leaders, continues to be hosted by Education Week and is about to get a new infusion of authors.
• The Edjurist, our school law group blog headed by Dr. Justin Bathon, now has 7 contributors from 5 different universities.
• Dr. Michael Barbour’s Virtual School Meanderings continues to be the source for all things (and I do mean ALL things) related to online schooling.
• John Rice’s Educational Games Research blog focuses on educational gaming.
• And, of course, this blog, Dangerously Irrelevant, continues to chug right along!

We’re in the process of getting a Leadership for Social Justice group blog started (interested in being a contributor?). Plus we have a few other ideas up our sleeve…

We hope these continue to be good resources for you. If you have any suggestions for improving the work, reach, and/or impact of the CASTLE blog family, please let me know!