Politics, Blogs, and Education?

Another post I've been meaning to write about for several days and just couldn't find the time...

I was surfing channels on my television recently and saw an ad for an upcoming episode of the Chris Mathews Show. In the ad, Chris Mathews is plugging away at a guest whose opinion had to do with the upcoming presidential election and what bloggers have to say about the candidates. What hit me about this ad, is that Mathews berates the guest as to not having credited sources for the topic at hand. The guest attempts to explain that the blogosphere itself and the authors of these blogs is their source, however, Mathews cuts the guest off and I for one was left feeling that we, the audience, are supposed to think these "bloggers" have no idea what they're talking about.

Now why am I blogging about this? Because I feel that bloggers do know what they're talking about and that Mathews is missing a very large picture to our nation's and our world's future. I found this ad to be ironic, especially because both presidential candidates are using the Internet and blogs and youtube in particular, in ways never imaginable before now. A few months ago, two of my friends, who are very strict democrats, showed me how celebrities were supporting Obama on youtube. I had never really done much with it before and was very surprised to see music videos dedicated to his campaign! There was even one that had cut quotes from his speeches and was put to music! I all of sudden realized that this was going to be a very different campaign. But how could I use this? My head started going into overdrive with ideas for work.

On the flip side, before school ended I had discovered McCain's daughter's blog. She wasn't blogging quite the way I've seen typical blogs, and there were more pictures than I was used to, but she was blogging on the campaign trail and spreading the word.

So basically, the idea I'm trying to get at here is...how is the Internet and bloggers, specifically, not effecting this election and why would someone say that what they are saying on the Internet has no credibility outside the Internet? These candidates are smart...they are going straight at my generation and where they are located the most...the Internet.

I do realize that he is also a journalist and that he may think of "sources" in a different way than I am. I graduated with a degree in journalism and a source had to be reliable. I could see where someone posting on the Internet would not always be reliable. We certainly didn't talk about the impact of the Internet on journalism or other topics, because this problem didn't exist six years ago. Yes, six years ago! We're on a different playing ground now, where anyone can be a journalist in a matter of seconds. I get that...but will others miss how blogs are changing things, just as Mathews seems to have?

In terms of education, we need to think about how to prepare our students for these growing changes. Could elections be completely online one day...like testing? Will they only see political ads on the Internet, instead of t.v.? What if you had the power to just skip them, similar to skipping or closing a pop up window on ads now? Would that change outcomes? What about what our students may write about future elections? Will something they say, change the course of the future?

Going Campaigning...

After reading an article entitled “Batter Up” in NEAToday, I’m thinking a little more politically this week. This article was about various NEA members and how they are making a difference in education by campaigning for candidates who they feel will best support their goals for education. The members varied from elementary to high school teachers and political parties. Some teachers were content to work in their communities supporting local candidates, while others were thinking bigger with the presidential candidates.

This article seemed to come along at a perfect time for me. As I’ve been working on a teacher leadership class this past semester, I’ve been wondering how I can make a bigger difference in my chosen profession. Campaigning will be a great summer project for me and will help me feel empowered by making others aware of important educational issues. If these teachers in the article can do it, why can’t I? The only thing the article didn’t tell me was where I can find more information about getting involved in political campaigns. I did visit the NEA website, which has some other activities related to politics, but I still didn’t find what I was for. Locally, I’m not even sure who’s up for re-election in November, so visiting candidate websites is a little pointless. As far as the presidential election goes, I’m pretty sure I know who I want to support, but I’m not positive. However, going in this route seems like the best way to get the word out about educational issues. I’m even considering talking with some of my friends and seeing if they would like to join me. So for now, my goal is to figure out who to completely support this November.

In hopes of narrowing down my candidates, I visited www.glassbooth.org, a website I heard about on a podcast from BBC5. This website allows you to take a quiz about your opinions on various issues and matches your answers to the candidate who most closely resembles the same answers. It’s a great website to inform students about and have them try. However, for me, it wasn’t much help. There was a one percent difference between the two I’m trying to choose between. At least I got the political party right! :)

Although this doesn’t completely go along with this topic, I did find a website this week that I wanted to share. It’s called freerice.com and was created by a parent of a high schooler who wanted to prepare their child for the SAT’s. This vocabulary quiz website will donate 20 grains of rice to the U.N. World Food Program for every correct answer. When I was testing it out for my Website Wednesday newsletter I got up to 220 grains of rice! I was psyched about this website and its generous goals and wanted to make sure the news got out on the web. Visit it for your chance to send rice to people who need it.

Some Things

I didn't realize it had been a week since my last post! So much to do and so little time... I was telling some friends about the post I saw at Danica's Random Thoughts about Meghan McCain's blog "McCainBlogette.com". I mentioned to them that I thought it would be a great site for the Civics teachers at my school to use. One of my friends mentioned another blog that might be good as well. And surprisingly, it's at Glamour.com. Their new blog, Glamocracy, is all about women sharing their ideas about politics, the candidates, and more. What I think is really great about this blog, is that it's not just one party's views-it's women from different background and different parties, all giving their opinions on the topic of politics. Check it out if you get a chance!