Why Blog?

So, you might be asking yourself, why a blog? What is the point or the benefit of a blogging assignment as opposed to the more traditional academic essay or journaling exercise? Well, I’m not sure, to tell you the truth. This is a new experiment for me, and we’ll see how it goes! But I thought I’d write out my rationale and expectations for this semester’s blog experiment, both to give you some idea of what I’m hoping to achieve, and to make those expectations clear in my own mind as well.

And the need to write down my ideas about the value of blogging in order to make them clear illustrates my first purpose very well. Language and thought are linked. While it may be possible to think without language, it is impossible for us humans to communicate complex ideas to one another without expressing them through the medium of language. And language, unlike the unorganized anarchy of free thought, has rules which impose an order and structure on how ideas are expressed. To write something down, you have to organize your thoughts. That is one of the goals of this critical thinking class, to encourage you to gather, organize, evaluate and ultimately express your own ideas in a way that makes sense to both yourself and to others.

Another reasons why you are blogging in this class, rather than journaling privately or writing academic essays to be submitted only to me for evaluation, is that blogging allows those (hopefully) well organized and considered ideas to reach a wider audience, via the revolutionary ability of the Internet to connect us all. The topic we are focusing on in this class is the effect that popular culture has on modern American society. And I’d be hard-pressed to think of any contemporary phenomenon that has had a bigger impact on our ability to communicate and connect with each other than the World Wide Web. So why not use an aspect of the Web to illustrate that fact? You may have noticed a map at the bottom of the class blogsite. It’s a gadget called a Clustrmap. (Not all of the Internet’s effects on language and literacy, especially spelling, are good ones!) Click on that map and you can see the locations of visitors to our blog. While your blogging assignments are primarily for your own benefit to develop your thinking skills, and secondarily to demonstrate to me that development, who knows who around the world might also read your words and know your thoughts? Who can predict what might come of that?

The final reason for a blogging assignment in this class has just revealed itself to me as you have been establishing your blogs and sending me the links. As I’ve checked those links to see that the addresses are valid, I’ve found I’m really enjoying seeing how each of you has chosen to personalize your blogsite. I didn’t anticipate this at all, but seeing just the few pictures and comments, the colors and designs you have chosen has helped me start to see each of you as individuals. I want to encourage you to continue to use your blog to express yourself. You aren’t required to post anything more than the five assignments due over the course of the semester, but you are welcome to add anything else you’d like to your blog: pictures, personalized layout and graphics, more written posts, links or gadgets. They won’t be graded so there is no pressure to do this “right.” There is no right way to set up a blog, really, so do what you like. I will enjoy visiting them and getting to know you better.

So, those are my thoughts about this blogging experiment at the beginning of the semester. We’ll see if my expectations are fulfilled, and what other, unanticipated effects we’ll discover! Keep me posted (hah! I love puns!) about your own experiences with Blogger.com, the assignments and the results of your own blogs and we’ll revisit this topic in May.