Reflections on Blogs

Well, I have so many ideas for blogs now I have to put myself in check. I want to write a blog for those who want to "do" education after school or as part of homeschooling (http://lightingthefireresources.wordpress.com/--how's that for marketing?), I'd like to write another one for educators (I am finding that these are two very different audiences), and then I'd like to use them in the classes I teach.

This is the first step, I think, to using more tools like this for my writing students (like wikis). I am interested in using blogs to have students chart their progress in research projects (rather than writing them out in a spiral bound notebook that will either never be filled or will go into the landfill when we're done), but I think they could also be used as group projects, with four or five students creating a team of blogs on certain essays or texts that we are reading and creating their own reading groups (ideally that would continue on after the semester and perhaps move to new and different reading they are doing).

Long ago, when I taught a course on Women's Literature (a general education course that was offered as one of several that could fulfill a "gender" requirement) I decided that my goal in that course was going to be to make the students so excited about reading that they would continue to read books by and about women even after the course was over. We watched films, students taught portions of each story, we didn't take the literature too seriously, but we did read it critically and enjoy it together. That's the sort of feeling I hope to duplicate with these exciting, fun tools. Even if they aren't writing academic essays after college is over, I want them to continue to write--blogging may be a first step towards that goal.

This semester I have learned how to introduce a blog, that the title is important, that you can manage a blog and a blogroll with Google's "reader" tool and RSS feeds. I learned how to market my blog, which I plan to do soon. I also had some great conversations about how to use blogs in a way which forwards our educational goals, not simply adds a technology for the sake of doing something new. The most important thing I learned, though, is that I love this stuff, and I want to continue reading. I've read Tapscott's MacroWikinomics, and now I am reading The World is Open (a response, I am guessing, to Friedman's The World is Flat). Exciting times for educators!