This post is the first of a series providing an overview of the literature about edublogging.

In this first part, I discuss a number of purposes blogging has been used for. 

Reasons for Edu-Blogging

Journaling

Boud (2001) referred to Moon’s explanation (1999)  that there are several purposes for journal writing:

fostering critical thinking skills and “a questioning attitude”, enabling learning processes inquiry as a basis

for learner self-assessment, (in which educators provide more choices for learners about how to learn),

improving learner self-confidence, broadening learner creativity resulting through improved intuitive

understanding, fostering strengthened writing voices for learners, and cultivating reflective and creative

interaction in discourse within sharing circles.

Slow-Blogging

In a recent blog post, Barbara Ganley (2009) considered the principles of slow blogging and provided a

framework for how she prefers to apply blogging to learning. She asserted the importance of brevity,

but in the context of playful, slowed-down, more in-depth reflection. She explained that both common

sense and a spirit of wandering need to be balanced. She explained we need to belong to the moment,

the group or community, the experience; as they also belong to us, in the sense that we need to strive

to engage ourselves entirely in every learning situation. She encouraged others to seek out the edges, for

it is at these borders of sharing spaces and communities where true learning occurs (Ganley, 2009).

Web of Connected Knowing

Cranton (2002) emphasized the significance of educators acknowledging their learners as whole

persons. To establish a relationship of trust and discovery with learners, it is crucial to weave a web

of connected knowing. Cranton acknowledged that educators play a key role while working with adults

in literacy programs to encourage a setting of openness to dialogue and connection, so that learners

no longer feel silenced and voiceless.

Much of the literature on edu-blogging is emphasizing the necessity of connection, about

“…synchronizing one’s experience with others, about testing one’s evaluations against the outside world. Blogging, besides being an act of self-disclosure, is also a ritual of exchange: bloggers expect to be signaled and perhaps to be responded to” (van Dijck, 2004, pg. 7).

Cultivating Personal Voice

“A blog is characterized by its reflection of a personal style, and this style may be reflected in either the

writing or the selection of links passed along to readers” (Downes, 2004, pg. 3). The history of personal

journals is separate from blogs. Blogs are more than an online journal. “Blogs link to friends and rivals

and comment on what they’re doing. Blog posts are short, informal, sometimes controversial, and

sometimes deeply personal, no matter what topic they approach” (Downes, 2004, pg. 3).

Edu-Blogging for Self-Creation

Hiemstra (2001) summarized the potential of edu-blogging when he explained that the journal writing

process involves ‘an investment in self’ through a growing awareness of thoughts and feelings. It also

leads learners to trust their inner voices.

Blogging is an experience, a construction of self, a process that aids in the expression and organization

of thoughts over an extended period of time. Self-definition is accomplished as a series of events, of

conversations. Blogging software is “…a cultural artifact which facilitates a social process in which

exchange and participation are conditions to enacting citizenship” (van Dijck, 2004, pg. 8).

In effect, edu-blogging is an act of agency, of self-transformation, and it is a combination of two

processes: blogging-as-action, and blogging-as-artefact.

 

Edu-Blogging for Self-Reflection and Dialogue

Reflection often involves active, engaged processing of raw emotional content and impressions of messy,

confusing, experiences to make better sense of them (Boud, 2001).

Jurgen Habermas (1974) identified the pivotal role of dialogue, and identified dangers of mono-logical

self-reflection, which occurs to student edu-bloggers who receive limited feedback at the initial

stages of their learning journeys. To prevent this, it is crucial to extend the hermeneutic circle to

develop a critical community of conversation.

Edu-Blogging for Community

Such a community also depends upon dialogical reflection to expose and remedy contradictions and

distortions in thinking. Such a critical community of conversation is guided by an instructor’s

scaffolding and feedback that encourages students to stay on track and remain engaged in the process,

and not get intimidated by or defensive about working with concepts in a shroud of ambiguity

and uncertainty (Habermas, 2004).

Edu-Blogging for Relationship Building

Dirkx (1997) asserted that “learning through soul is about relationship, our relationships with others

and the world, but also with all aspects of our experiences, objective and subjective”

(Dirkx, 1997, pg. 3).

Alan Levine supports this viewpoint related to what edu-blogging involves:

“It is discourse, conversational, a back and forth with your readers” (Downes, 2004, pg. 24).

Edu-Blogging for “Parallel Conversations”

George Siemens (2009) explained that he started blogging through elearnspace.org and sent out

weekly email summaries of his ideas. Over time, he extended it to RSS feeds. It was, for him, an

opportunity to share resources in a loose network and engage in "parallel conversations".

This "dialogue of awareness” was a central motivator for him to continue blogging. He also

commented that it provided "limited direct engagement". He explained he preferred to tweak and

post short, concise posts, rather than create long prose. It was (and is) considered “a pause-point”,

a space for reflection, in which he emphasized he wrote for himself on a variety of topics of interest

to himself. He has enjoyed the processes of sense-making and way-finding.