Shrock V. Richardson

Kathy Shrock and Will Richardson both run educational blogs. There are some differences, however, in how they are created, how they are presented, and the purposes they can serve.

Shrock's Kaffeeklatsch has a great look, and is part of her on-line empire. There, she has lesson plans and advice about teaching. She has links to her on Facebook, and her page looks a lot like the Blogger page we have here. It doesn't say it, so she probably paid for better service. Her blog is updated a bout once a month.

Richardson also has a on-line empire - he has ads for his book, the ability to link to him on facebook, a twiter link and even You-Tube video links. His blog was created in Wordpress, which is kind of like Blogger - takes very little time to set up, and is great at basic features. His page is updated a few times a week.

Neither of these titles are very helpful. Shrock's could be anything, as could Richardson's. Similarly, their subtitles are equally vacuous - What does it mean that Richardson is "learning with the read/write web?"

Because both of these writers are heavily invested in publishing, there are links to each of their bios. There, they establish their credentials, where they clearly are reputable to write on education.

According to Technorati, Shrock's wank is about 109,000, while Richardson's is 5,945. His authority rating is also about 5 times hers. Obviously, both of these posts privilege education. I doubt homeschoolers or tax avoiders might use them to figure out how to improve their lives.

Ultimately, I can see using Shrock's page. It has more durable resources, like worksheets that could easily have been used 15 years ago when the WWW was brand new. Richardson, on the other hand, may be moving through temporary space. Wiki's may be here to stay, but Twitter is replacing more formal blogs, and podcasting and videocasting may go the way of the way of the buggy whip if cell phone technology continues to advance.