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Donna points the way to a discussion brewing at Will R.’s about blogging vs. journaling. I have to say that the reason I want to study blogging (and other forms of electronic communication and visual rhetoric) (even though some people think I’m crazy or stupid) is because of reasons such as those stated by Will R.:
I can publish for an audience and wait (hope?) for its response to push my thinking further.
Absolutely. Blogging is a text/discussion version of what I imagined academic discourse to be.
With readings, class discussion, and discussion posts there is this sense, to me, of multiple things to be checked off a list as completed in a mad dash to read and respond to everything before semester’s end. On the other hand, I don’t feel as rushed when I blog. Blogging facilitates my thinking over several days about something because I can post my thoughts one day and come back to them another day and add a little more. My thought process is documented and searchable.
Perhaps this bit by bit accumulation of understanding that one gets from blogging is more comprehensible from the inside looking out. That is, I think in order for more academics to get what we’re doing here, more of them will have to try blogging for themselves. But even then, I think the full effects of blogging won’t be immediately apparent to instructor or students during just one semester. We are sowing seeds here, blog by blog. It will take a while for the seeds to sprout.
Plus, blogging gets me out of my head while still in my head. Does this make sense to anyone but me? I think about things, a lot. If I don’t write down what I think, the thought slips away and may not come back for a while (I’m getting older every day). And, I can’t keyword search the thoughts in my head. If I wrote my blog thoughts down in a journal (paper or electronic), I’d lose the discussion part of this that I appreciate so much, even if not so much of it happens yet on my blog. I can still follow the discussion that happens on more experienced bloggers’ blogs.
All of this blogging about blogging does bring up a valid question. I want to use blogs in my first-year comp class. I need to figure out what I expect students to evidence by semester’s end.
Moreover, what do I expect from myself by semester’s end? I’d better get to that now. Later!
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About m2h blogsMarcia Hansen works by day as a marketing manager in social media. At other times you'll find her traveling about speaking, writing, and learning. And, if she's lucky, it's on her Honda Shadow 1100.
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Yep,
Donna
April 11th, 2005 at 9:01 pm
Makes sense to me! And, yes, “I think in order for more academics to get what we’re doing here, more of them will have to try blogging for themselves.” How, though, to get them to try? As I mentioned over on Collin’s blog, and as I mentioned to you f2f, my friends at Cs were so skeptical. And as you say in another entry, it isn’t as if blogging directly contributes to scholarship (at least not usually or often). But still it contributes in indirect ways: in keeping me thinking, as you say, and in keeping me connected to ideas. And, as Will R. says, blogging about ideas pushes me in ways that just thinking about ideas doesn’t. So, yes. Yes. Yes.