I typically don’t repost items directly from other sites; I prefer to tag those to resyndicated feeds (check the sidebar), but this short clip from The Simpsons is perhaps worth reposting. I noticed it while reading effectivedesign.org by John Curry, a friend and colleague.

Since I decided to blog on general educational technology issues, there’s a few thoughts I’ve had but not yet blogged that I’d like to share. The first one is . . .

In the April 2007 issue of Technology & Learning, Jeff Utecht (who blogs at The Thinking Stick and U Tech Tips) suggests the problem with blogs is that many educators do not understand them. From Blogs Aren’t the Enemy, Jeff writes:

If we look at blogs as nothing more than electronic journals - replacing written journals - than I can understand why educators do not “get” how blogs work . . . Blogs are not about writing, they are about a conversation . . . if you do not bring the conversation back into the classroom, they are no different from assignments written on paper and handed in to the teacher for a grade.

Jeff continues the article by highlighting the importance of dialogue, the conversation threads that happen between blogs, the importance of bidirectional comments from learner to learner and learner to teacher, and

If you are blogging with your students . . . I encourage you not to think of blogs as writing assignments, but instead as conversations that invite feedback from a variety of quarters on any topic.

I understand and agree with every bit of it. My question is, however, “Within the context of a classroom, if I want to facilitate discussion among and with my students, if I’m interested in facilitating a thread of conversation, why shouldn’t I just use a discussion board?”