I am interested in finding collaborators for a project involving getting a clear picture of the number of teachers who blog across the globe.

In my current research on using social software to support teacher professional development, I found myself asking, I wonder how many classroom educators (a) started a weblog and (b) continue to blog?

Turning to several academic databases as well as Google I found no evidence of any such data. I then turned to Technorati and searched under the following terms: teacher, teachers, teaching, and education.

I received the following results:

teacher -
491,199 posts tagged teacher
5,940 blogs about teacher

teachers -
8,122 posts tagged teachers
2,378 blogs about teachers

teaching -
17,664 posts tagged teaching
5,899 blogs about teaching

education -
117,595 posts tagged education
23,723 blogs about education

[Search conducted on Technorati June 26, 2008 at 8.05 AM EST.]

While this data is intriguing, it does not answer my initial questions. I then went in search for some benchmarks, something to compare these numbers to in Technorati. Unfortunately, I could find no way to adjust my search to a specific time period within Technorati. (Is there a step I am missing?)

Further searching led me to an article from the Houston Chronicle dated January, 29, 2007. The reporter noted that "[t]he number of blogs about "teaching" or "teachers" tracked by Technorati.com" had increased 10 percent in less than six months to "nearly 950."" Unfortunately, it is not clear from the article what 950 represents. Does it mean there are a combined number of blogs about teachers and teaching? Is that an average? Or are both terms showing 950 instances?

Given this limited data set, we can see that since the end of January 2007 to the end of June 2008, the number of blogs about teachers and teaching has grown 2.5 to a little over 6 times larger in 18 months. (How long will this trend continue? What's driving it? Questions for another day....)

So what other data would be useful for thinking about teachers who blog?

According to the Upcoming Statistical Abstract of the United States: 2007, there are 6.8 million teachers employed in the United States. The bulk of them (2.6 million) teach at the elementary and middle school level. The remainder include those teaching at the postsecondary, secondary and preschool and kindergarten levels.

Let's say for the sake of argument, of the 5,940 blogs about teachers, half of those are authored by teachers in the U.S. That would mean that there are around 3,000 teacher bloggers in the U.S. or approximately 1 blogger for every 2,000 teachers.

Does this sound right? Is there better data out there to make more informed estimates about teachers who blog?

Any thoughts or ideas on how to make this information more salient or reliable? Interested in collaborating? Let me know what you think.

Reference:
Upcoming Statistical Abstract of the United States: 2007) retrieved 26 June 2008 from http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/www/releases/archives/fac

Graph -- All theories proven with one graph

OK, even I never thought I'd utter those words aloud, but check out this interview with Tom Brokaw.

Gates displays a sense of humor when asked if he has an iPod and he provides a reasoned mature answer to the question about concerns over children being harmed by computers.

This stands in stark contrast to the fear and loathing displayed by popular edubloggers who regale us with the virtues of their technology-free cleansing retreats and the micromanagement of their children.

Hooray for Bill Gates! Who would have thunk it?

PS: This news report about Gates' last day at Microsoft reminiscences is quite charming and well worth a read.

Many people have been asking where I went, that they have not seen any new posts in some time.

Truth be told I have been focusing almost exclusively on work (distance education issues at my uni) and my dissertation research.

My day job as director of distance learning programming has taken several new and complex turns. Overall, our university budget cuts have been massive. Simultaneously, enrollments in our DE programs in the college have taken off exponentially. My units' funding model returns revenue directly to the college which in turn has provided us with a comfortable cushion. In other words, while other departments are suffering, mine has been growing flush with resources. This has put me and my staff in the spotlight as more academic units turn to us to see how they too can flourish moving courses online. Making issues more complicated, we recently completed a search for a new associate dean, i.e., my boss, which put many strategic and policy considerations on hold while working through the search process.

And just when I thought things were safe, our amazing, witty, and wonderful instructional designer announced her resignation thus putting me and out IT expert in charge of finishing course development projects.

So, while all this has been going on during regular working hours, I have written and defended my dissertation proposal (chapters one, two, and three) and have been collecting and analyzing data. Data collection will end in April 2008 and my goal is to synthesize it all and defend the final product/book in August 2008. As such writing on my weblog has had to take a back seat. (heavy sigh)

I miss writing and reading edublogger material. I have found a few spare moments to follow my favorites and occassionally distract myself on Twitter. I miss interacting with my virtual friends (that probably comes across sounding odd).

To make matters more topsy, Ben and Dave's announced closure of Eduspaces, my virtual home since 2005. I want to go on record to say that the Elgg/Eduspaces boys and community have been absolutely fabulous and a tremendous asset to me, academically, pedagogically, emotionally, and spiritually. Without Elgg/Eduspaces I probably would never have stuck with blogging.

Dave and Ben (and Misja) have always been responsive to my needs as an educator and writer. I knew from the start that Elgg/Eduspaces was their labour of love--that it was time intensive and resource consuming for them. They built Elgg with sweat equity while they continuously searched for ways to fund development, maintenance, server capacity, etc. Who would expect that they could keep supporting the site and feed themselves and their families for free? I applaud their efforts and sadly understand why they cannot maintain such an endeavor. 

I am currently in the process of building a new site. I purchased the domain "xl-medium.net" (i.e., "extra large medium") and will begin migrating content over the next month or so. Dave and Ben have assured me that links to My Eduspaces site will remain active which is a good thing since there are numerous links, sites, and projects linked to several of my posts.

I am still wrestling with how the new site will work. I need a site for professional purposes linking to academic papers, projects, fora, and my "notebook" i.e., my weblog. I am looking at developing the site using Drupal which will allow me to manage various types of content more easily. As such, I will be laying low as I make this change a reality. I will maintain a presense on Twitter and keep people apprised of my progress.

I want to thank the edublogger community/network for their support and for continuously writing, reflecting, sharing, tweeting, and collaborating across the globe. I'll be back soon and hopefully will have something meaningful to contribute to the ongoing conversation.

One door closes, another opens...