A few weeks ago I blogged about Zaid's list of the top Edubloggers and Janet Clarey's observation that out of 25 bloggers, there were only 3 women on Zaid's list.
Not
one to forego a learning experience, Zaid immediately took our
discussion as an opportunity to expand his own learning and set off on
a search for women edubloggers. The result is in his slideshow. You can
also read more about his thinking and process here on his blog.
I want to underscore how this experience is another example of learning through blogging.
Zaid
posted his first list as a way to share with others some of his
favorite blogs. Janet picked up on it and blogged about her observation
that there were only three women, which led to a lively exchange in the
comments of Janet's post between Janet, Zaid and other bloggers.
I picked up with my own post, as did Cammy Bean. Additional conversations ensued through the comments sections here and at Cammy's place.
As
a result of all of this, Zaid decided to go back and look specifically
for women bloggers he could further explore, thus coming up with a
whole new set of voices he hadn't experienced before and then sharing
the results of his learning again.
This
to me is the essence of the learning/blogging/commenting process.
Through these various exchanges, we all learned and thought more about
the issues of gender and blogging and it happened across multiple blogs
and in multiple formats. Thanks to Zaid's willingness to create
his list of 27 Women Edubloggers, we also had an opportunity to find
new people to add to our own feed readers.
This
learning loop wouldn't have occurred, though, if Zaid had not been open
to the learning process. He could have chosen to see the discussion as
an attack and then become defensive and closed to alternative options.
Instead, he showed the courage of the true learner and used our
observations as a springboard to expanding his own thinking--and ours
as well.
Hat's off to Zaid on this one!
This post is so gratifying! You compliment Zaid with the courage of a true learner. Me too, hats off to Zaid. And you point to the community spirit of collaboration in the whole circle. In education at any level loving kindness makes a strong foundation. Online we're notoriously harsh with one another. Leave it to educators to know that you seldom go far with barbs. This is a great story I'm sure to share.
Posted by: John Powers | October 09, 2008 at 09:43 PM