WaPo Picks Fave Edubloggers

In today's WaPo, ed-journalist, Jay Mathews, and prolific letter writer, Walt Gardner, pick their favorite education blogs.

Not surprisingly, we didn't make Gardner's list. We did, however, get a mention in Mathews list:

D-Ed Reckoning includes very wise, inside-the-classroom postings, sophisticated discussions of topics as difficult as reading instruction and dissections of pompous columnists, like me. I found one error in the blog's critique of my Dec. 19 column on KIPP teacher Lisa Suben: DeRosa said she had no prior teaching experience, but I said she did two years in an Louisiana eighth grade. That is a minor flaw. These are smart people.

Mathews is referring to this post. Therein lies the beauty of blogs. We don't need no stinkin' editors to catch our glaring mistakes, we have a team of smart readers/commenters who catch them for us. For example, Mark Roulo caught that particular error the same day which I soon acknowledged. That's a good example of how a bottom-up editing approach works, as opposed to the top-down approach used by journalists. Actually, that's only the second line of defense. The first line of defense is being linked to and attracting a readership in the first place. That seems to effectively weed out the more unreliable blogs right off the bat.

The morale of this story is that you should definitely read the comments. Often the commenters have a better take on the story than I do or add to what I've said. Even when commenters disagree, they often have something productive to say or, at least, spark a lively debate. I've been pressed for time lately, so I've been neglecting getting into the the comment section fracas. I always read all the comments though and so should you.