I Think, Therefore I Blog

Blogging is therefore to writing what extreme sports are to athletics: more free-form, more accident-prone, less formal, more alive. It is, in many ways, writing out loud. -Andrew Sullivan

Blogs have taken off as one of the most popular mediums on the internet. Over 180 million people have blogged, and two new blogs are coming into existence every second (Richardson, 2010, p. 19). But why? What is the power of the blog?



Seth Godin is a famed blogger and marketing guru. Although the above exchange was captured at a seminar about entrepreneurship, Godin's comments about blogging ring true no matter what the occupation of the writer.

"What matters," he says, "is the meta-cognition of thinking about what you are going to say." Later he states that with blogging we "force [ourselves] to become part of the conversation." His comments get to the heart of the questions I have regularly asked myself with this blog: What is the purpose of my post? What can I connect my ideas to? How can I make this post relevant to today's conversation about education?

Blogging taps into higher-level thinking, which is why it makes such an outstanding project to do with our students. Think about all the skills being engaged at once: planning, writing, researching, linking, synthesizing, critiquing, commenting and responding. When you look at Bloom's Revised Taxonomy, this chart shows blogging at the top:
Will Richardson (2010) points out that true blogging doesn't happen instantaneously; it is a progression from something simple like journaling to something more complex that involves articulating one's understanding of content through links and interaction with your blogging audience (p. 31). It's taken me over two months to start to feel comfortable with the blogging process. It evolves slowly, with patience and self-discipline. It is the process of blogging and the benefits that come as a result that I'm excited to share with students.

References

Fisher, M. (2009, February 27). Digital Bloom's Visual [web log post]. Retrieved from http://digigogy.blogspot.com/2009/02/digital-blooms-visual.html

Innerpreneur. (2009, April 18). Seth Godin and Tom Peters on blogging [video file]. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=livzJTIWlmY

Richardson, W. (2010). Blogs, wikis, podcasts, and other powerful web tools for classrooms. Thousands Oaks, CA: Corwin