Task Three - Blogging Two - Blogging Begins With Reading

I have my blog, so now I am finally arrived at the point to blog about blogs and blogging. Gracious!

Going through the task in order, I first sampled a bunch of the blogs on the list. Since I am usually searching the web in my own areas of interest, it was fascinating to see the range of sites, topics, and methods of presentations. I took notes on the sites as I explored them.

• Patrick's Update - sweet, well-written, I bet this lad passed fifth grade. I wonder how the kids' blogging is incentivized? I like them writing about writing, tips and such. This would take some training in internet discretion for my kids, and even then, we'd have to watch it.

• A Duck with a Blog - delightful, hilarious, and a great way to share the community's experiences

• AP Physics B - I just love Martin. What cool entries and links! impressive writing

• Natalie's Pithy Python - so well written, informative, and funny; a delight and a daunting bar

• EduBlog Insights - continuously learning to be literate, communities of discourse, knowledge as interconnected, voice and ownership, archiving (accessible); I think I'll have my students read and comment on this, at least to me.

• Mark's edtechblog - the kids' writing interested me the most; Mark is beyond me in technical knowledge.

• Atlanta on the Cheap - I'd love to find a site like this of which I could actually make use. They just don't have anything useful when I need it, and I don't succumb to the urge to do it now because it's somewhat cheaper.

• Seth's Blog - O, my goodness. He certainly has lots of good ideas, especially for business. He's generated an impressive amount of material. Is he doing it along for the most part? Business and discourse seems to be heading this way. How to sift through all of the verbiage?

Questions, questions, questions....

What do you notice about the genre of blog writing in general?

Much like my own blog, many of them have a more conversational tone compared to the informational sites I tend to visit. Most of the ones I read were well edited and presented. Some contained more formal parts, while other pages or entries were clearly intended to be more casual. The series of entries that comprise most of them remind me of letters home from a traveller, inspired by discoveries and new ideas.

(How) is blog reading different from other types of reading? How is it similar?

While I find some parallels in others' work with children, much of it is only of fleeting interest for me, so the main difference is personal incentive. I wouldn't read books on most of these topics. It occurs to me, though, that in some ways, I am more likely to read someone's comments on student writing, ducks, or business practices in blog form because I can be more selective and limited than I would need to be in order to glean something from a book. If I found something of interest, then I could pursue it further.

(How) is blog writing different from other types of writing? How is it similar?

It reminds me of keeping a journal. I expect any long-term blog of mine would combine notes, casual entries, and more formal presentations.

How does commenting contribute to the writing and meaning-making?

It would depend on the community of people making the comments. I've seen a bunch that were ridiculous or offensive. The blogs I explored today tended to have far fewer comments than more popular blogs, but they were better. I like the idea of kids commenting on some of one another's work.

Is there a "blogging literacy?" How does blogging affect the way we read and write?

The text of blogging itself is the same as traditional writing in almost all ways. Being able to archive and to link entries to one another and outside sites is novel and takes practice. As well, bloggers and their commenters need to learn how to navigate these activities, which is a bit different from blog site to blog site.

(How) can blogging facilitate learning?

I found Patrick's Update most illuminating in the regard. I'd like to have kids posting their work to blogs, some of which only I could read, others available to each other, maybe a few published to the wider net. I'd have to figure out how to do that at Paideia. It would be great to have them commenting on each other's work and ideas.

I am also thinking, as mentioned in my previous post, that I could create blogs for some of my own interests like China and roleplaying games.

Finally, it would probably do me some good to read more blogs. There are a few from and about China that I check occasionally but not much of anything else.

Addendum:

I added a comment to Kemi's blog and then googled how to add a hyperlink inside a comment in order to create a link back to my blog for her. The number one result of the search made sense to me, but it didn't work since the code apparently only directed it to look inside her blog webpage. I wonder how to fix that? I'll look more tomorrow. Hyperlinks have been so easy to create in writing the blog, but I don't see buttons in Kemi's blog to add such a link inside and comment, and the hypertext is beyond me to troubleshoot.