Literature: Pros of blogging (Part 1)

Like the disadvantages blogging, most of the advantages are rationalized from the experience of bloggers, journalists, scholars, and others. Very few have been empirically proven.

Blogs are essentially web pages that are easy to create and update. Bloggers do not need to know HTML or how to use web page authoring tools (Downes, 2004; Herring et al, unpublished manuscript). Newer blogs also allow users to incorporate other media, e.g. photos or sounds (Kadjer & Bull, 2003). Oravec (2003) described blogs as creative outlet. These factors together with the ease of personal and instant publishing can be motivating factors for bloggers (Kadjer & Bull, 2003).

Blogs tend to be more personal and this lets readers in on a blogger’s personal life (Downes, 2004). I think this aspect of blogging cuts both ways. Some blogs facilitate a borderline form of voyeurism (Jensen, 2003). However, how much is revealed is within the control of the blogger. Nonetheless, draw of blogs may be the real human issues contained in blog entries. In many blog set ups, anyone can respond to any entry compared to the closed systems in class discussion forums. The open nature of blogs and the presence of an audience can be strong motivating factors for learners (Downes, 2004; Kadjer & Bull, 2003).

Collectively, the motivation of instant publishing for a wide but unknown audience might encourage writing and learning on the learner’s own time.

Various authors believe that blogging engages bloggers and encourages reflective writing (Downes, 2004; Kadjer & Bull, 2003; Oravec, 2003; Stiler and Philleo, 2003). For example, Stiler and Philleo’s study of preservice teachers’ blogging for coursework found that learners’ entries were “more analytic and evaluative… longer and written in ways that indicated that students were considering the bases and motivations behind their beliefs” (p.795). However, while they compared this with non-blog writing from the previous semester, they did not describe how they determined differences in the quality of writing.

Oravec (2003) reasoned that the practice of blogging might reduce plagiarism. She suggested that if a group student bloggers had access to each other’s blogs, they would be less likely to copy another student’s work since they would be monitoring each other. Furthermore, blogging tends to focus on the individual and his or her critical evaluation of various resources or phenomena.

References

Downes, S. (2004). Educational blogging. Educause Review, September/October, 14-26.

Herring, S. C., Scheidt, L. A., Wright, E., & Bonus, S. (2005). Weblogs as a bridging genre. Manuscript submitted for publication.

Jensen, M. (2003). A brief history of weblogs. Columbia Journalism Review, 42(3), 22.

Kadjer, S. & Bull, G. (2003). Scaffolding for struggling students: Reading and writing with blogs. Learning & Leading With Technology, 31(2), 32-35.

Oravec, J. A. (2003). Blending by blogging: Weblogs in blended learning initiatives. Journal of Educational Media, 28(2/3), 225-233.

Stiler, G. M., & Philleo, T. (2003). Blogging and blogspots: An alternative format for encouraging reflective practice among preservice teachers. Education, 123(4), 789-797.