When we were told in class last week that we are required to create a blog for the course, I thought, "Okay this will be interesting. Not too sure about it but we'll see what happens." Then after learning that the blogs will be open to everyone outside of our immediate class, including THE REST OF THE WORLD, I was quite hesitant, thinking that I did not want to share my personal life with anyone who dared to venture inside of this blog. But, reading all of these articles opened my eyes to the benefits of blogging and the importance of leaving any thought of hesitation at the door.
The article titled "On the Subject of Blogs," Laura C. Berry does a fantastic job of identifying how people are often uncomfortable with the world of blogging because it mixes both the professional and private aspects of a person's life. The two aspects no longer exist as separate entities, but rather constantly mix and mingle together. Within the article, Berry identifies how blogging has a diary-like quality to it and like diaries, we can see ourselves within the writing and because of this the writing becomes personal rather than the distant and removed quality that can often be seen in paper-based essays. Personality and creativity emerge within an online blog since there is room for creativity, newness and adaptation. The final aspect of the online blogging life that Berry points at is that there is an element of performance in blogging. Writers are free to leave behind any reservations about their writing, because they are writing in a world of endless possibility, thus becoming a "virtual object of desire."
The second article that I enjoyed the most was actually the last article from the LORE site. The author, Jason Ward, provides a very positive and helpful perspective of the blogging world. In the beginning of his article he presents how there are four major aspects of blogging that are essential to look at: its creative potential, a genuine audience exists for the writer, strong communication and how students find joy in this writing style. The most important part I took away from his four primary points is the fact that students truly enjoy the technological online style of writing compared to paper-based writing. At one point he refers to writing via blogs as an "alternative assessment," which I thought is a very useful way to look at blogging. Blogs are not simply a means through which students post their work for the rest of the world to see, but rather blogs provide students with an alternative way to write and express their ideas as students and writers. Since blogging is quite often viewed as being fun students will be driven to want to do well. Writing to an audience greater than just one teacher, gives the student a drive to succeed and the opportunity to illustrate his or her own personal creativity within their blog.....just like I am doing now I suppose.
