I am a huge fan of Weller - following his blog and Twitter. I also bought his book as soon as it was published. He highlights that academic blogs "compete with traditional means of public engagement" (Weller, 2011 p. 49). An example of this is where blog web-links are shared automatically via Twitter. Blogs are an invaluable tool to share ideas.
Conole demonstrates how blogs and reflection link together. "Use of the site during the conference is a perfect example of how we are actively co-developing the site, watching and reflecting on user behaviour to fine tune and tailor the site specifically for educational professionals" (Conole, 2010 p. 11). I follow Conole on CloudWorks and Twitter.
This is succinctly summed up by Kirkup as "The kind of academic blogging which seems to produce the greatest sense of subjective well being, and is best at enhancing professional reputation, is the blog of ideas. In this kind of blog authors engage in conversations with their own ideas and the ideas of their peers. Blogging is both a process where ideas are developed and expressed, but often in a concise and accessible form quite different from the traditional long, analytical, and discursive academic texts that are the products by which most academics are assessed" (Kirkup, 2010 p. 21). I've come across the work of Kirkup in previous MAODE modules.
References
Conole, G. (2010) ‘Facilitating new forms of discourse for learning and teaching: harnessing the power of Web 2.0 practices’, Open Learning, vol. 25, no. 2, pp. 141–51.
Kirkup, G. (2010) ‘Academic blogging, academic practice and academic identity’, London Review of Education, vol. 8, no. 1, pp. 75–84.
Weller, M. (2011) The Digital Scholar: How Technology is Transforming Scholarly Practice , London, Bloomsbury Academic.