Personal Blogs

This post is a response to 817, Week 1, Activity 3: how blogs are used to assist in the publication of research.

My first substantial post.  Having read both Kirkup (2010) and Conole (2010), but not Weller (2011) due to it not loading in my browser, I’ve been heavily drawn into thinking about the motivation to blog.

This has resonated with me, because of the reticence I felt over pressing that button the first time that commits our thoughts to the online and accessible environment, even though I’ve chosen only to share these thoughts with my fellow module participants at this stage.

My barriers to engaging with blogging could be seen as the same as the barriers to engaging with Web 2.0 full stop. I feel I don’t know the rules of the game; that I am unfamiliar with the tools (simple things like navigating the site, and finding where the post buttons are); and that I don’t know what ‘self’ I am conveying.

Moving onto our module activity - With what I’ve read (admittedly limited), I don’t see much in the way of evidence supporting the view that blogs are being used to assist in the publication of research. Kirkup’s small study points to a lack of audience engagement beyond superficial ‘applause posts’, which don’t offer any form of critique or development to the ideas published in the blogs. This lack of ‘conversational scholarship’ (Gregg 2006) perhaps highlights the fact that the unique benefits of Web 2.0 are not being exploited by the academic community. Rather it is being used as another communication tool, to give academics a voice, sometimes a slightly different and more informal voice, from the ones they have through traditional publication routes, and to engage with a broader audience.

The same cannot be said about the Cloudworks site, which appears to be being used extensively to exchange ideas on teaching practice.