As the discussion for blogging goes on and whether we need to be teaching students how to blog continues, I would like to bring a few thought to the table.
First, I think that the use of blogging in a classroom is a great tool and one worth using. The ability to be able to post opinions and have other comment on those thoughts is great. I do believe that blogging needs to be taught in school but maybe not the way some would think it needs to be taught. I would challenge that simply giving an assignment where students post a paper or a "one time" blog post is NOT blogging or teaching students "how" to blog.
For me, blogging is a constant habit of journaling online. The actual formality of how one writes is not as important. While keeping thoughts concise and to the point is key, knowing how to be persuasive as well as opinion driven, it is the consistency of how often one writes and the ability to keep a continual voice and/or authority on a subject.
As I mentioned on a comment I wrote to Sarah's post, Andrew Sullivan in his video mentioned that you are not actually blogging unless you are posting more than 2 times a day. If you do anything less than this, he suggests it's simply a webpage. I completely agree with this.
I applaud teachers that could actually find a way of implementing an environment of true blogging for their students. The most natural way would be allowing the kids to actually create a blog site and posts regarding a particular subject they are found of, and to keep the site going for a period of time.
I've seen a ton of teenage boys that like to play "tech support" or give buying advice on gadgets. My wife has been wanting to do a blog site for healthy eating and recipes - especially where to buy the needed groceries in Shanghai. Another example of a blog that caught my attention was a photographer in Kuwait who was taking a picture every day for 365 days and posting his thoughts on the images. I found myself going back to the photographers site daily to see his new posts and even after the year of pictures, I chased down what his new endeavors where. Blogs can contain many different forms and subject matters. But to really be blogging - it needs to be something that brings the reader back for more.
Again, if a teacher could find a way to capture students interests and have them keep a blog going throughout the semester, for example - that would be truly blogging. Anything else is simply a one time paper online.
Let's consider really using the rich format of blogging in our classrooms as a tool to teach our students to have a persuasive voice, provide new and compelling thoughts daily, and to be experts in their own way. That's true blogging!
As a side note, I just wanted to apologize to you all for my lack of presence lately. I've been in and out o the hospital with returning kidney stone issues. I hope I am past the worst. I realize this post is one assignment past due. Hope you all can understand.
ReplyDeleteI hope you are feeling much better Paulo. I think your post is very well-written, persuasive and interesting. You've got at least one reference in there which is good. I do agree that a blog can be anything somebody really wants it to be. The original definition of it, created to help determine its origins, simply describes it as a reverse chronological set of posts about stuff found on the web. There are traces of this going back to the early 90's. The academic version of this has evolved significantly since then. Where I agree the most is that it must be continuous, and not just a place to submit digital work..ick.
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