So far (three chapters in one and several vignettes into the other), I've enjoyed the two reading sources for this course.
What did we learn this week that I could apply to my job? Well, taking a look at the blogs that are out there I was surprised to see how much edu-specific content and sites there were out there. I was aware of a few of them, but the list of sites taht we checked out was far more substantial than I would have believed. It good to see that these forums exist. Though, due to the fact that I have not yet jumped into the teaching field, not all of these sites are completely beneficial to me (personally) at this time.
In my current occupation we talk a lot about sharing "best practices" but we haven't historically had a good way of doing that throughout the organization. However, in recent years the USCG has been dabbling with web 2.0 with fairly good results. Our previous Commandant was a big proponent of social media and blogging. There is one fairly well attended and populated site that shares training tips, best practices, study guides, etc. for my area of responsibility - Marine Inspections. I believe that additional blogs of this sort would assist personnel prior to and after attending the specific Inspections Trainee Schools with grasping some of the more complex or contentious issues that arise in our profession.
Unfortunately, the forums in which discussions about blogging are normally had are in security-type sessions where we are given the third-degree on "Operations Security" and given all sorts of examples about how personnel in combat zones (or their loved ones) have compromised the integrity of missions by blogging about things that are going on (patrol schedules, pictures with meta-data, etc.). So I can't say that blogging will become a big part of the military infrastructure, but the couple of sites that I'm aware of have proven to be beneficial to the personnel who use them.
I never considered the security implications of blogging. You and I both have the issue of not actually being teachers. In my case I can come up with business applications for blogs, but I am not sure how being in the military might change that. This could be true of most other Web 2.0 applications as well. Part of the solution might be to be very specific about the subject matters that people should put in their blog entries. That seems to be the case with the MArine Inspections blog. I guess it is just applying the right tool for each subject.
ReplyDeleteI would be curious how man military people are blogging, have you checked to see if there is a sanctioned blog vetting place for military personnel?
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