Throughout the conference I went to several sessions on blogging. I’m not convinced, however, the presenters who claimed to be blogging are actually blogging. They’re using blogging software, their students use blogging software, but I’m not convinced that using the software is the same as blogging. For example, does posting writing prompts for students constitute blogging? Are students blogging when they use blogging software to write to those prompts? —Richard Long —Back from San Antonio (2River)
A good point. Link found via Will R.
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People do tend to interpret new things in terms of things they already know. It’s human nature. Education can help, of course.
Dennis, It sounds like professors and teachers want to change what blogging truly is into a new version of Blackboard, WebCT, or Desire2Learn, which I vehemently oppose and still find highly offensive. I hope not, though.
…or is it that the blog of a student who hasn’t any real interest in blogging simply isn’t a good blog, just as the essay written by a student who hasn’t any real interest in essay writing simply isn’t a good essay?
Good point. There are tons of definitions out there, and I still like Jill/txt’s the best, but the time is coming to differentiate: academic blog/student blog/professional blog/corporate blog–>all of these avoiding the “basic blog” or online diary? Or I am pushing it with the online diary and should call it an online archive since the links are what truly make a blog?
Is it time to start talking specifically about “academic blogs” = “blogs that exist solely because a teacher calls them into existence”? Those can be as bad as the corporate blogs that try to emulate the style but which shovel out the same old PR content.
I am sure my students’ group blogs will die and perhaps they should not be called blogs since I’ve given them guidance about posts instead of the journal approach, but I still see the power of teaching them about audience and online publishing.
Hello Dennis. This is sort of an interesting problem within the field and there seemed like a lot of people who either do not blog or do not really blog with their students. But I think the real difficulty is trying to get students to understand the genre who are not that familiar with using the internet for things other then email, im-ing, and research.