Monday, January 29, 2007

Blog or "Blah-g"?

I am that person between a rock and a hard place.

As an educator, I find myself asking the question, how does blogging help my students? If I make my students journal on the web, is this getting away from the reliability of pen and paper? That tangible evidence that is an extension of one’s mind? Shouldn’t we be teaching how to write before throwing them into the ocean of blogging to sink or swim? It is like giving someone a chisel and a block of marble and saying, “make David” without giving the necessary clay first. Students need the basics. (And let’s be honest: students will naturally use shorter language when typing in an informal setting such as blogging, foregoing all taught grammar and sentence structure. What message does that send?)

As an educator, I find myself loving the idea that the world is at my fingertips through a small plastic machine. I can connect to an individual living in Siberia from a click of a mouse. I can read about shark attacks or sewing techniques. People can respond to my posts, expanding and tightening the connection between people. Isn’t that what blogging is supposed to do? Connect us to each other? I read the blogs of others and am fascinated at different perspectives. I am that selfish person; I take what others write, absorb it and make it a part of me.

Blogging is absolutely selfish—and I love it.