First, let me say that reading the posts of other participants on this course has been interesting and helpful - before this course I had not even considered using a blog, academic or otherwise, so the first step after reading the brief was to read Kirkup (2010) and Kerawalla, et al. (2008).
Initially, I had a slight reluctance to make entries, possibly putting myself into Kerawalla’s fifth group (Kerawalla, et al., 2008), but having made a couple of entries for my own personal benefit, I began to see the possibilities. One of the academic arguments put forward by opponents of academic blogging is that it has the appearance of being published work without actually being accepted for publication (Kirkup, 2010), but then what do we mean by published? The OED gives the following definitions;
Publish: Line Breaks: pub|lish Pronunciation: /ˈpʌblɪʃ
Verb
- 1. Prepare and issue for public sale
- 1.1 Print in a book or journal so as to make it generally known
- 1.2 prepare and issue the works of a particular author
- 1.3 formally announce or read
- 2. Law: communicate (a libel) to a third party
(OED, 2014)
This makes it clear that the blog is a form of published work, but is it peer reviewed? The answer to that appears to be that it can be – depending on where the blog is published and what kind of comments or feedback is received.
Certainly, for the promotion of an idea for discussion it seems to be a good medium, and, if the audience (Kerawalla, et al., 2008) is an academic community (Kerawalla, et al., 2008) then the feedback could lead the original poster to change his or her mind, and to look in new directions for the answer. I feel that part of the reluctance of academia to accept the blog as ‘serious’ is due to a lack of understanding of the range of possibilities that it offers, and also, even within the world of those bringing technology into education there seems to be a kind of conservatism (small ‘c’!) and an acceptance of the status quo.
Web 2.0 has advantages and disadvantages for both teaching and the spreading of new research ideas (Esquivel, 2012), but I think personally that the academic blog will continue to grow and will be a useful tool in the future for researchers and teaching. I do not believe, however, that any researcher or student should feel that they cannot succeed without a blog, however useful some may find it, others will never be comfortable reading or writing in this way.
References
Esquivel, L., 2012. Web 2.0: Computer Mediated Communication and Collaboration, Brownsville: University of Texas.
Kerawalla, L., Minocha, S., Kirkup, G. & Conole, G., 2008. Characterising the different blogging behaviours of students on an online distance learning course. Learning, Media and Technology, 33(1), pp. 21-33.
Kirkup, G., 2010. Academic blogging: academic practice and academic identity. London Review of Education, 8(1), pp. 75-84.
OED, 2014. Oxford Dictionaries.com definition of publish in English. [Online]
Available at: http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/publish
[Accessed 10 February 2014].