I think that this movie really opened my eyes to how education really is around the world.  I am very new to this subject and have had not had much experience with many of these topics, but I feel like I have learned a lot in a short amount of time about how education works around the world.  A very interesting topic that I saw and feel comes from Western thinking is the invention of failure.

It seemed that in the Indian culture there was a high value placed on being educated and making it through to a high level of education.  As the movie progressed there was a sense that many of these kids that started going to school do not make it through and then consider themselves failures.  As one of the men said in the movie, that these kids will refer to themselves as failures for the rest of their lives. I think the idea of failing in school really is a Western idea, putting grades and evaluating every aspect of education.  There is much more to life than grades and how high you make it through the education chain.  It was interesting to see how the elders in the community viewed schooling.  Some of the women that have been in the village their whole lives and have made major contributions to the well being of the whole community, are considered to be uneducated and of lesser value to society.  They are living the simple life that they grew up with, and find it hard to see the value in leaving their rich culture to try and go after money and big jobs. These ideas being implanted by aid organizations and other influences trying to promote Western education ideas.  Shields quotes Samoff and Brock- Utne saying, “A major critique of international development programmes is that they reflect the interests and priorities of donor organizations rather than those of aid recipients” (Shields 40).  If they don’t achieve these goals set then they are considered failures and return to their village and in turn do not know how to do anything on the land.  They lose their roots and the culture that their elders have believed in so strongly throughout their lives.  These cultural values are just as important as being well educated, and there is a gap between education and culture that needs to be fixed.

I think that overall that many kids and young adults in other countries are being negatively effected by the Western education ideals that are being forced on them.  They are being told that they need to be doctors and lawyers, and to make a lot of money to be happy and considered a success.  Many of these people will not attain these lofty goals, and in the process lose their cultural values as well.

Doctors and Lawyers—The documentary Schooling the World: The White Man’s Last Burden, asks the question “who benefits when all the worlds children are educated the same way?” Will children in rural Pakistan be able to do the same things with their western education as children in a wealthy neighborhood in Turkey? The concept of factory schooling is easy to implement but the outcome is not always what is expected.  As the documentary explains:  “Less than 10% of people are succeeding in becoming doctors/lawyers/etc. Most are unable to finish and fall between the cracks.” How many engineers, doctors, and bankers does a community need? The education of the masses does not provide an option for the 90% that are now forgotten. With decisions about education being made on an international level, the connection and ability to help those that have fallen through the cracks is just not possible.

Globalization—This term was first used to explain growing intertwined economies and now is applied to everything in our daily lives and has affected the way we educate every person in this world. With decisions about how people should be educated being made on the international level, the needs of the local community are forgotten.  The Western definitions of “progress” and “success” are now tied to how we educate. Students are taught to progress and succeed in ways that are not feasible in their communities; this begins to create a cycle of dependence. A dependence on this globalized economy where these definitions do apply, but which is not necessarily a standard that is attainable for all.

How globalization has shaped our education systems.

Failure— Schooling the World suggests that those who did not succeed in traditional schooling will be branded as failures. In the world of international education, students are told that being successful means something different then it did to their grandparents. No longer is working at the family business an admirable goal—students are continually taught that success is something more. Families now see it as necessary for their children to do something else, to learn a new way, and to become successful in the globalized world. However, without the cultures and economies of different regions, our world would not have the variety that makes our global system. Western education is not universally applicable as some may suggest. The world only needs so many doctors, it is the differences and creativity each person possesses that allow people to learn new things and allow for many different definitions of the word progress.

Solutions— Global ideas about education generally agree that education is a inalienable human right and those who attempt to work towards this goal generally do so with the correct intentions. However, as Schooling the World suggests, these people may not be “connecting the dots” and realizing the impact that certain types of education will have on a specific community. Our education system is already globalized but it is up to every one of us to be more optimistic as to our ability to educate others in ways that will lead them to achieve success organically. The world needs not only doctors and lawyers but also storytellers and carpenters.

Whether we recognize it or not we live in a capitalist world where everything from food to education has become a commodity. Capitalism, as described in the film “Schooling the World”, serves the few at the expense of the many [1]. The film “Schooling the World” is an exposé of education and how capitalism and it’s partner in crime, globalization, has imparted Western education on the rest of the world.

The film highlights the ways in which modern Western education is a “cultural steam roller” replacing a culture’s traditional way of education with the Western idea of education. Students begin to lose their own sense of culture in this shift from skill education (agriculture and other trade skills) to modern education; one scholar in the film highlights that students begin to forget their own language and traditions [2]. In large part the transfer of Western education has come from North Americans and Europeans traveling to the global South. This done by people themselves and, with all good intentions, believing they can help by teaching English or restructuring a developing nation’s education system.

Ivan Illich, an outspoken Austrian scholar, delivered a speech titled “To Hell With Good Intentions”, which he delivered to the Conference on InterAmerican Student Projects in Mexico in 1968. His speech went much like the title; critiquing North American students who travel to third world countries as volunteers or as he says “dogooders.” His speech bluntly raises an important conundrum that I often struggle with being a student of international studies, and a conundrum I found while watching the film. That struggle being: what right do I have to go into a third world country and help them “develop” their own identity? In his speech Mr. Illich directly says, “By definition, you cannot help being ultimately vacationing salesmen for the middle-class ‘American Way of Life,’ since that is really the only life you know” [3]. Our good intentions are over powered by our way of life and culture that is, subconsciously or not, imparted on those we intend to help but, as seen in the film, we end up disrupting. While the film and Mr. Illich both bring up a crucial realization, neither legitimately offer ways to which we can abolish this cycle.

To begin, at the end of his speech Mr. Illich asks that we “voluntarily renounce exercising the power which being an American gives you…Come to look, come to climb our mountains, to enjoy our flowers. Come to study. But do not come to help” [4]. Now I believe the goal of studying other cultures and traveling should be to gain a greater world view and multifaceted story of other places, but I must admit that I am one of those “dogooders” Mr. Illich can not stand. So how do we attempt to “do good” without transmitting our Western culture?

Many “dogooder” agencies take on a mantra that they will not send agency members to countries without an invitation from the host place and community; the host community also specifically requests the fields in which they would like agency members to enhance. A friend recently returned from a trip where she also struggled with the idea of entering a rural community to teach on women’s health when she was hardly a professional. She took comfort when she realized that she was not solely there to teach but to facilitate a discussion with women in her community, where the women could use each other as resources. I very much appreciate this mentality and hope that I myself can become a facilitator rather than a “dogooder.”

[1.Carol Black. (Director) Schooling the World: The White Man’s Last Burden. 2010. Web.]

[2.Carol Black. (Director) Schooling the World: The White Man’s Last Burden. 2010. Web.]

[3.Ivan Illich. To Hell With Good Intentions. 1968. Web.]

[4.Ivan Illich. To Hell With Good Intentions. 1968. Web.]

[5.Carol Black. (Director) Schooling the World: The White Man’s Last Burden. 2010. Web.]

After watching the movie, and having had the privilege to experience the education systems in both India and the United States, I find it very interesting to compare the understanding of the concept of education in the so called East and West and its role in shaping these societies. Here are some of my observations-

One of the biggest themes that stood out for me while watching the movie is the value that Indian society associates with being educated and how it affects your place in society. Education in India is regarded as a means to achieve social status and respect. People are judged based on their level of education. Academic schooling is what gets you validation in the society. Unfortunately, to me that does not seem like a reasoning that would lead to the road of development. In face, I would say it is the opposite of development. Education is supposed to empower people and enable them to dissolve social hierarchies. Ironically, it seems like education is widening these social gaps.

Secondly, the film highlights the fact that Indian education system is modeled around the western education system. The idea is to teach students the skills needed to be successful. Success here meaning a high paying job which helps you lead a comfortable life. Western education is linked to the notion of civilization. It is supposed to bring what the Indian system lacks. This point was particularly interesting for me because I think it plays out also in the way education is imparted in classrooms. Speaking out of personal experience, classroom education in India is very much a one way process. By that I mean that the Professor is considered as the sole possessor of knowledge. The system does not encourage students to contribute from their life experiences. On the contrary, the educational experience I have had in the United States very much taps on the knowledge of the students. It is seen as an exchange of knowledge and ideas.

The other point I would highlight here is that of the idea of Colonization of mind. Colonization of mind is an essay written by the Indian scholar Ashis Nandy. In his essay Nandy talks about the impact of British colonization on India. According to Nandy,one of the impacts of colonization which is still prevalent in the Indian society is that of inferiority complex. The colonizers played with the psychology of the colonized people and convinced them to believe that they are uncivilized and inferior. In order to progress they need to be civilized by their superiors i.e the British. A small example of this phenomenon of colonization of mind in India reflects in the country’s emphasis on using the English language. The school system is highly focused on students learning English, because the language is seen as the superior language and will prepare them for a better and promising future. As shown in the movie, the emphasis on using English is so much that the students are even punished on communicating in their mother tongue. Once again I find it ironic how education is a factor in losing ones own language and culture instead of promoting it.

To wrap up, I would say the movie raised a lot of pertinent questions in terms of the purpose of education. Do we consider education as an expensive commodity to be enjoyed by a selected few who will later contribute to the widening gap between social classes? Or do we understand the true purpose of education as a revolutionary tool which will help to bring about positive changes and liberate us of this phenomenon of colonization of mind?

When considering the topic of Education and International Development, it is important to first fully understand the connotation of such a loaded word like discourse. A discourse, as explained by Robin Shields (Chapter 6 p.81), is “a set of shared meanings, assumptions, and taken-for-granted truths.” This is mind, it becomes easier to both understand and tackle some of the complexities within the education and international development discourse itself. As exemplified by the documentary film “Schooling the World,” this is no easy task to take on, the realities underlying education and development are laden with questionable approaches, overbearing hegemony, and mistaken understandings.

Furthermore, one of the most profound and prevalent themes throughout the film is the concept of values. Through globalization and decentralization Western practices and theories of modernity have become encrypted as a basic fundamental agenda. Consequently, the local customs, norms, and values or an “undeveloped country” become replaced by a new mantra: one that fosters economic growth and trumps local wisdom. This mantra, similar to the mantra of decentralization which is, “recited regardless of the circumstances of specific settings,” (Shields 71) is creating a “cultural myopia” (Schooling the World). What is arguably the most disheartening facet of the education and development discourse is the fact that not only are people losing their own cultural values, but they are being thrown into an idealogical prison.

In the film, one woman was quoted saying, “the children are educated now, so they don’t want to stay on the farm.” The farm and reciprocal lifestyle are considered rudimentary and backward within the prevailing discourse. Children who leave their homes to go to school often lose their local language and cultural values. Instead, they are spoon fed ideas of modernity, monetary success, and development. The problem: not everyone can lead the lifestyle beckoned by these spoon fed values. Thus, school age children who move away from home to become “educated” trade the wisdom of self-sufficiency, compassion, and social-togetherness for a pipe dream of cash and modern commodities. The question: where is this mindless mantra leading people? According to the film, less than 10% of children funneled into Western inspired school systems will actually succeed. Therefore, nearly 90% of all individuals who become enveloped in the education and development discourse are simply being branded for failure (Schooling the World).

So, what would a mindful mantra even look like? In my opinion, there would be an element of responsibility. Within the prevailing discourse, or rather the mindless mantra, there seems to be an omnipresent arrogance. As if Western modernization is the only way to live life. As if anything less than becoming part of the mainstream (false) dream is backward and stupid. In truth, many of the countries now adopting the education and development paradigm shift have far more history and long-standing cultural values. It is nearly impossible for me to imagine that here in America, after a marginal 300 years of existence, we have it all figured out. Thus, without any intention toward adapting a variety of cultural practices, demystifying assumptions, or searching for the real truth behind “taken-for-granted truths,” the efforts of the developed world to spread a certain kind of education discourse is somewhat mindless. In sum, it is worthwhile to consider the merits of teachings that foster sustainability, independence, and kindness and also recognize the benefits of seasoned cultural values. These intentional adjustments to the education and development discourse have the potential to help create a more mindful mantra.

(Source: Leaving “No Child Left Behind” Behind from The Class Struggle)

In the film Schooling the World: The White Man’s Last Burden, we are repeatedly told that minority and traditional cultures and languages are being crushed by the cogs of formalized, mass, Western education. The film provides testimonies of young men and women who have moved to New Delhi and have become caught up in Western culture; “They tend to forget their own culture … sometimes they don’t even know how to speak their own language” (Schooling the World, 2010)¹.

English has taken the linguistic world hostage and represses all others in its wake. Western education is thus seducing and destroying the myriad of cultures in the world by contorting them all into one homogeneous product for industrialization.

In a majority of instances, Schooling the World is correct, yet there are other sides of formal, Western education that are not so destructive to languages. Minority languages can sometimes be preserved by formal education. Furthermore, having children learn the lingua franca of the day, i.e. English, can lead to increased dialogue between cultures rather than being a purely malevolent force. Granted, history is wrought with examples of minority groups, cultures, and languages being attacked by a foreign government and culture. Yet this is not a necessary outcome of education today as Schooling the World purports it to be.

It all depends on how you teach and who supports you.

The documentary “Schooling the World” highlights some key issues about the imposing of Western education values on other societies. One story that is told in this documentary is that of a community where students, just like here in the United States, are pressured into obtaining a University level education. Upon completing this education, however, they are not equip with the skills necessary to participate in their native economy. What the underlying message of this example is, though, may not be clear to someone at first glance. It is not just that we are providing people with the wrong skills, we are creating a cultural hierarchy that assumes Western values are not only universally applicable but morally correct. This cultural imperialism is problematic for three main reasons: it prevents the preservation of non-Western culture, creates an unfair advantage for Western economies in the global market, and justifies unequal treatment of people in the societies that the West is “educating”.

When we go into countries to provide education, the motives are usually good. However, in practice we end up neglecting to appreciate the value of the culture that we are entering in to and truly understanding what they want out of the arrangement. Instead of insisting that the Western way of teaching is the best way to educate people, we should instead try to understand what skills are useful to the local economy and culture and create a curriculum based upon that. This would solve for the issue of people being unable to apply the knowledge they gain from Western schooling and preserve the traditional culture without implying value judgments about what culture is superior.

The next problem with the current education system is that the skills that it provides people with are catered to Western businesses and organizations. This creates generations of people who are tools of Western economic development rather than unique contributes to the economy. When graduates are not able to enter into their local economies, they often look to relocation to gain employment. This not only takes away the most skilled workers from the native area but completely undermines the philanthropic aspect of Western educators going in to these areas to begin with.

Finally, the most detrimental impact of the Western education system abroad is that it justifies human rights violations. When we go in to an area and teach their children that they should reject their culture and accept this Western value system, we are inherently creating a cultural hierarchy. This hierarchy justifies discrimination based on where you were born and other factors that are not controllable to an individual. It creates two choices: either you conform to the Western system and slowly work your way up in the cultural hierarchy or you choose to not conform and are viewed as disposable. This is the biggest reason why we need to reform the current education system.

Overall we can see that the way we are educating other cultures is wrong. Solving this issue of the way in which we do education abroad is the first step to solving the bigger issue of people viewing one culture as superior to others. We all have a role to play in this, recognize the cultural imperialism promoted by the United States and reject it. This takes the form of changing the way that you talk about other countries and promoting discourse that frames other countries as part of our global community rather than deviant. If we can change that view in ourselves and in future generations then one day we will see a world where the norm is to appreciate diversity rather than homogony.

Marlaina L. Isbell

A viewing of the documentary “Schooling the World” offers a critical perspective on the development of international educational policy from its present framework as practiced in the globalizing world community. The film’s cinematography offers time for the viewer to reflect on the discourse while shots pan across the beautiful Himalayas, invoking a cinematic sentiment that education is to be taken in a place of reflection upon the natural world.  From a journalistic perspective, the film portrays aspects of various educational policy such as the transition of traditional peoples in the developing world from a lifestyle of multi-generational sustenance farming to that of uniform adherence to an institutionalized education and a disparate economic system. The economic, social and environmental issues that the global community faces can be traced back to an ideology of economic imperialism, a resounding faith in systemic industrial, chemical, and genetic engineering systems. Many of these systems are being staunchly challenged by activists in the global community, including Vandana Shiva, a highly facultative Indian born woman who is now active in movements concerning agriculture, climate change and systemic educational policy.

Shiva critiques the educational policy in her home region:

“I came from the central Himalayan region of Garwal. The woman of Garwal worked very hard to make sure the kids would have schooling, but of course the schooling was the institutionalized schooling of the kind that doesn’t teach you anything about your local ecology, your local culture, your local economy or your ability to be productive, it basically teaches you to be a semi-literate for another system to which you have no entry because you don’t belong to the right class, you don’t belong to the right privilege, etc. I now go back to the same villages and the woman say that the worst mistake they made was to think that that kind of education would help. We have saying in Hindi: It’s the washerman’s dog that belongs neither to the place where the washing is done nor to the home. They are in between people and they are falling through the cracks of an in-between world.” –Vandana Shiva, “Schooling the World”

There are many examples of the inequitable distribution of capital and labor resources in the current structure of the world economic order. Less Developed Countries seem to remain underdeveloped while bearing the various costs of their natural resources being plundered by international corporations under the banner of 21^st century economic imperialism. An example of structural adjustment policy enacted in the agricultural sector is to be found in the Punjab Region of India beginning in the 1970s and under the directorship of Norman Borlaug and USAID. This industrialized model of agriculture has criticized for its negative social and ecological impacts. Chemical intensive agriculture, generally recognized as a monoculture with a heavy focus on using expensive machinery to add chemical inputs in the form of macronutrients like N, P, K, Ca, Mg and S, and it has been proven that with consistent intensive application of these inputs, the soil becomes less nutrient-rich, and the vast majority of life supporting microorganisms including bacteria and fungi which retain water in the soil are killed off.

Unfortunately the impact of the Green Revolution, which in mainstream media is hailed to have saved the lives of billions in the short run, has in the long run created vast debt for thousands of Indian farmers who cannot make payments on their Western tractors, chemicals and bio-engineered seed because of the desertification of their fields, driving a significant portion of them to developing inferiority complexes or suicide. In addition, the ecological impacts of chemical intensive agriculture include genetic mutations and unbalanced pH for organisms in contact with the regional ground water. Many of the projections (SAPs, GEPs, etc.)  from the developed world to the developing world have caused multi-faceted crisis following their implementation, especially in the long run.

             Realizing that both education and agriculture belong to the foundation of human life, Shiva identifies a solution and calls the international community to readdress these issues with a progressive frame of mind:

“We can now only go forward by picking up the threads of our broken histories and nature’s broken evolution, its only through that that we can build the bridge to the future, because a century of breeding for industrial agriculture has been a breeding for uniformity and uniformity is a guarantee for very high risk and very high vulnerability…”

–Vandana Shiva

Works Cited

“Schooling the World,” publisher unknown, additional citing req.

Verger, Novelli et Al. Global Education Policy and International Development, Bloomsbury, 2012.

www.youtube.com /search Vandana Shiva

Selling the world, dreaming a lie is the prevalent Western strategy, based on our speculation-driven economy, to draw as many new clients into the global consumer market as possible. For this, people have to be manipulated, formed, created, molded, simply put educated to fit into the cash-economy.

The documentary film Schooling the World critiques the emerging trend to use Western modern education as a panacea to tackle poverty worldwide. It challenges the goal of poverty reduction and rather suggests poverty creation with the current approach. The film elucidates the underlying assumption of UNESCO, UNDP, UNICEF, and the World Bank to bring development to non-industrialized countries by drawing children around the globe away from their homes, educating them, and then integrating them into the job market.

Education for All (EFA). This is the new catch-phrase in the international development sector. In 1990, at the World Conference on Education for All in Jomtien, Thailand, 155 countries and 150 organizations agreed to provide universal access for primary education. The shift of the education discourse from an economic driven approach to education as a fundamental human right was celebrated as a breakthrough, even though forty years earlier the Declaration of Human Rights had already proclaimed that “everyone has the right to education.”[1] Nevertheless, in 2000 Universal Primary Education became a goal of the MDG’s (Millennium Development Goals). This got the worldwide effort progressing and the wheels spinning. Governments, Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs), as well as the private sector allocated money, which resulted in 82 million more children being enrolled in primary education during the first decade of its implementation.[2]

I believe that the policy, Education for All as it is carried out at the moment will diminish and eventually destroy the diversity of cultures and leave us with one homogenous culture, namely the Western high-consumption culture. The school settings oftentimes mimic the Western example and appear quite uniform globally. Wade Davis, an anthropologist, describes culture as “one model of reality.”[3] However, the modern education of the West has been expanded to remote rural villages on continents like Asia or Africa. Children, whose parents are still working the land, are now sitting in classrooms to receive universal primary education. The curriculum which is used has not much to do with the lives around them.

Interestingly, by hearing Education for All, most Westerners assume the so-called developing world should be on the receiving end. In my view, shifting the focus to truly Education for All is the only workable approach. We, educated Westerners, know that our Earth’s resources could not sustain the world population on our living standard. Therefore, since we know it is not possible, I think it is time to turn the table and we should realize that we are the ones who have to be educated in order to reduce poverty. If the goal is poverty reduction, it is on us to rethink our lives. If it is about economic growth we should be honest about selling the world and dreaming a lie.

Vandana Shiva explains in the documentary film Schooling the World that our education deliberately and systematically attempts to create what I would call robots. In her words she says, “I think the way Western Education has grown over the last few centuries, especially with the rise of industrialization, was basically not to create human beings fully equipped to deal with life and all its problems, independent citizens able to exercise their decisions and live their responsibilities in community, … but elements to feed into an industrial production system. They were products with partial knowledge. We move from wisdom to knowledge and now we are moving from knowledge to information and that information is so partial that we are creating incomplete human beings.”[4]

As the name says: Education for All. So why are we taking ourselves out of the equation, but project it to the rest of the world?

[1.Shields, R. (2013). Globalization and international education. p.26. Print.]

[2.Shields, R. (2013). Globalization and international education. p.26-27. Print.]

[3.Carol Black. (Director) Schooling the World: The White Man’s Last Burden. 2010. Web.]

[4.Carol Black. (Director) Schooling the World: The White Man’s Last Burden. 2010. Web.]

• Education forcibly molds people to become players in the global economy.
  -The idea of poverty is created by large capitalist powers to justify using globalism ideologies to infiltrate “third world” areas, labeling them as such, and then using education to mold people to fit into an industrialized economy. We as Western powers do not have the right to barge into these “struggling” countries and force our ways of life upon them nor is this plan working . President Evo Morales of Bolivia sees the evil first hand: “Globalization creates economic policies where the transnationals lord over us, and the result is misery and unemployment” [1. Good Reads. William Wordsworth Quotes. 2013. Web.] 
• Education is a cultural eraser.
  -Children are leaving their parents and homes to go to school and later get jobs in the cities. In doing this, they leave behind their cultural traditions that they would uphold if they remained at home. Rather than promotion cultural tradition, individualism becomes the new focus. “If have lost your history, you have lost everything.” [2. Good Reads. William Wordsworth Quotes. 2013. Web.]
• What has education done to us?
  -We should reconsider our view of what education does for our own society. School is mandatory and consumes a large chunk of our entire lives. We are pressured into moving onto higher education so we can become specialized in certain skills. Specialization is the key to the global industry: creating separate sectors filled by a large, “educated” work force to mass produce our goods, technologies, and ideas. Philosopher Mokokoma Mokhonoana claims “ “A specialist’s mind is a slave to his specialization.” [3. Good Reads. Quotes About Specialization: Mokokoma Mokhonoana. 2013. Web]
• Education is tearing us away from nature.
  -What could we be doing with all the time that we spend sitting in walled rooms, staring at a scribbled board, listening to the drone of a paid speaker? If life were like it once was before structured educational practice, we would likely be spending that time outside. Consider the connections and the values that our ancestors had.. that we lose everyday. In the words of romantic poet William Wordsworth, “ Come forth into the light of things, let nature be your teacher”. [4. Padgett Tim, T. P.  A Voice On the Left. Time Magazine. 2006. Web.]

  

  

  
  
• Education isn’t in a classroom. 
  – I can say with absolute confidence that I’ve learned so much more outside the classroom, surrounded by the outside world, than I ever had in the classroom. Personal cultural interaction will teach a person much more than a textbook could ever. Before our structured Western idea of education, “traditional forms of education fostered stability” [1.Carol Black. (Director) Schooling the World: The White Man’s Last Burden. 2010. Web.] It was direct experience motivated by survival, spirituality, and togetherness.

These are just five theories that look at the education we partake in and support in a negative light. There are a multitude of reasons why education is a positive and powerful tool for good advancement and change. All I’m asking is for you to rethink the one-sided view of education as a flawless and magnificent gem that will fuel world progression. It may be fueling progression, but is it progression in the right direction?

It happened. We have a class blog! Yes, it’s public – meaning anyone can find and read what we write. Read below regarding signing in and how you can publish your blog posts:

• You have all been added as authors of the site. This means you can edit, write and publish posts, as well as upload files.
• UO Blogs uses WordPress, if you’re familiar with WordPress, you’ll be familiar with how this works. If you are new to WordPress – have no fear, it’s (mostly) straightforward (but not necessarily intuitive)
• NOTE: When you login to UO Blogs (left tab, top of the page) click on “use my DuckID” – the other sign in areas is for guests
• Once logged in, you will notice you have two sites under “My Sites” – all users are enrolled in the U of Oregon blog, and our class blog Education and Development
• Go to the dashboard: you will see “Posts” on the lefthand column, click it and then “Add New”. Here’s a link for more on writing your first post.
• If you want to insert pictures – use the “Upload/Insert” directly above the Visual Editor you use to write your posts. You can also link to an audio (mp3) file as well as insert a  YouTube video (not as obvious, but fairly simple).
• Our blog is simple. There are 2 pages: Posts. Resources. I’ll be adding some subfolders under resources with links to online resources. (this will be more convenient than Blackboard).
• REMEMBER: Since you are no longer emailing me a Word Doc, you will be watching your word count regarding length. Please write between 400-500 words for each of the 3 required posts. (Other posts are optional with no length requirement)
• For assistance, visit the general support guide or check out the Edublogs User Guide
• For additional assistance, contact the Technology Service Desk at 541-346-HELP or techdesk@uoregon.edu. You can drop in at 151 McKenzie anytime during the day (8-4) for help as well. They are an excellent resource. UO blogs has been running for about a year now, and the techdesk is excited to help students use this new tool for teachers and students to interact and exchange ideas.

I hope you enjoy this feature of the course and based on your topics from yesterday – I can’t wait to read what you write!

Best,
Jessica