Why do you blog?
i have an assignment in my undergraduate education technology course that has my students using Technorati to find other educational technology related blogs. my students are supposed to find a blog entry and read it and then add a comment to the blog site. of course, i then need to visit every single comment to see what my students wrote and i will inevitably read the blog entry. i also check the other comments to see if a conversation develops and to see if the blog author has engaged in a dialog with my students. overwhelmingly, my students will write a thoughtful response and that’s that. No response back from the original blogger. I should add a caveat, some of my students find older blog entries and I can see how a blogger might tend to ignore an entry they wrote many months ago. fine. but many of my students are finding very current stuff and still being ignored. i don’t think busy bloggers need to respond to every comment, but i think the strength of the blogging tool is that it allows for a certain level of interactivity. if you are not trying to build this interactivity then i wonder why you blog in the first place — merely sharing information perhaps? and, i realize i may not understand the ins-and-outs of a busy blog as i rarely get more than 5 or so comments for any blog entry i add; however, most of the blogs my students found have just a few comments as well. perhaps i checked in too quickly. the responses were due on a Sunday and I checked things out 3 days later on a Wednesday. i’ll give my peers the benefit of the doubt this time, but i have my eyes on you mr. blogging community. ;~)
Technorati Tags: blogging, blogs, ed tech, students, technology in education
May 24th, 2007 at 12:31 pm
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June 3rd, 2007 at 4:26 pm
You said if we found you it was fair game. So, here I am. I hate commenting on blogs unless I feel it’s worth my time. Most people don’t reply even if you’ve left well thought out comments. Usually I’ll read a post, and keep my thoughts to myself. It is generally evident if people want feedback. Other people are obviously logging for themselves. I’m not sure if I’m the only one, but occasionally I’ll find a blog that I like, and I’ll go all the way back to the beginning to see where it started. It’s interesting to see how people evolve. It often starts out as a “dear diary” sort of endeavor. Slowly people, if they’re decent writers, will begin to adapt their writing style to more of a narrative, when they realize that they’ve got an audience. Blogging is something that most people start as something for themselves, but it quickly becomes something else. I still blog for my own personal record of thoughts and feelings, I include funny stories and tales of my travels. I know there are some people who make money on their blogs. There’s even the BlogHer convention where people come from all over to meet other bloggers. You’d think they’d do an online convention. For me, it’s an outlet, for other’s, it’s almost a profession.
June 3rd, 2007 at 4:28 pm
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June 4th, 2007 at 3:57 pm
I suppose, I’m just cool like that.
I don’t do as much blogging as I used to. I like things until they get too mainstream, and then I go off looking for newer things to call my own. It is still a little strange to me that my mom and aunt have their own blogs, but email escapes them, go figure. Give it a year and wikis will be passè too. Us kids (you’re included in the kids genre) have to stay on the cutting edge of technology.