Future Learning is a new blog set up by the Secondary Futures project. Apart from some quirky behaviours in the way the blog is constructed, the content and intent makes it worth a visit – and contributing to. A browse of the comments that have been posted reveal that there may still be a lot of talking required before we can reach a point of agreement on many of the important issues.
At a different level I found it interesting interacting with this blog (as compared to many other blogs I read and comment on). One of the hallmarks of the web2.0 world I’ve become accustomed to is the ‘personality’ of the blog poster (or posters) that emerges through the style of writing, the identity of the poster listed with the post and through my ability to read their profile online. I found it interesting that on the Future Learning blog each of the entries has been posted anonymously, and there are no links to the original contributors apart from the about link which refers to the four guardians of the project, but does not specify whether they are the ones generating the discussions or not. The cynic in me wonders if this is an attempt to employ a web2.0 approach by someone who is not familiar with how it all works? The graphics an interface are attention grabbing – if not reminiscent of a previous century of education rather than the future (and I’ve been trying to figure out what that blind does) – but some of the expected functionality isn’t quite there.
Despite this I’ll certainly be reading this blog regularly to see what sort of discussion it generates.