This part of the literature review comments on the central motivators for student edubloggers as compared to expert edubloggers and to bloggers in general.

"an aspiring edublogger needs to develop the set of network relationships such that their posts are read and responded to - in essence becoming a full member of the NoP" (Terry Anderson, Virtual Canuck blog post, 2009).

This comment presupposes that the primary role of blogging among established academic edubloggers is to reach a wider audience for professional networking. However, the specific needs and purposes of novice bloggers differ from experts.

As a novice edu-blogger, I have maintained an edublog in some form since 2007. I realize that developing a readership is a lengthy process; the development of one's own edublog as a significant academic node takes time and careful planning. Yet cultivating readership is really just one of several priorities. I think that for myself, the primary purpose to maintain an edublog is to develop an enduring collection of field notes, reflections, and concept drafts. For beginners, an edublog should be considered as a concept incubator to practice required academic writing and research skills and attitudes to hopefully contribute meaningfully to a larger academic Network of Practice (NoP) of edubloggers, perhaps on a global scale in future.

The initial stage is to practice the edublogging craft, drawing inspiration from model edubloggers. Anderson (2009) indicated that those involved in edublogging among academics are more interested in enhancing social capital than in cultivating a wider audience. "Quality contribution was associated with desire for building reputation and increasing social capital; [however], edubloggers who post frequent, high quality contributions did not hold high expectations of reciprocity."

This supports my experience as a student edublogger. There is a significant difference between bloggers in general, academic edubloggers, and student edubloggers. Student bloggers are far more acutely aware of the consequences of publishing to a community than regular bloggers. Academic edubloggers are far more sensitive to presenting their ideas effectively, and much more cognizant of the fact that the content will be enduring and have a great impact on their own academic credibility.

 In contrast, bloggers in general, and in some cases, student edubloggers, are far less concerned with their ideas persisting in the public sphere over an extended period of time. (van Dijck, 2004).

Currently, student edubloggers are not so concerned about the contributions, as they do not consider their own edu-blogs residing on institutions' learning spaces as enduring records of personal learning. Instead, they are considered disposable, episodic in nature, a hodgepodge collection of learning highlights. Very few of these blogs are commented on by other students. Thus, the majority of these edublogs might consist of superficial personal reflections, a shallow series of clippings, some dead links and some rudimentary drafts posted to fulfill course requirements. These student edublogs are transitory, with a period of activity lasting weeks or months, and seldom last past the end date of a course of study.

Oftentimes, learners new to blogging expect to respond and comment on (and receive comments from) other students, as well as their instructor. There tends to be a period of anticipation followed by disappointment, in which a learner adjusts their expectations. For the beginning blogger, the audience consists of a handful of other students, all with limited experience of blogging, and the student blogger's relationship is one of novice to mentor, all highly dependent on an instructor for guidance and encouragement. Thus, the majority of novice edubloggers are mainly blogging to thrash out one's own ideas to either receive grades on an assignment, or in some cases, for one's own future review.

From my own experience, I think that although it is nice to receive comments from other students, it is not expected to be the sole purpose for writing. Initially, for beginner student bloggers, the edublog is to be considered as a drafting board, a writing space for rehearsing the communication of one's voices, whether personal, public, and academic. Even though the posts can lead to reciprocity in terms of comments from anonymous others, it should not be considered the mode of practice, or standard, by which blog posts are measured, and learner participation assessed, particularly for novice bloggers who have just begun.

Much of the literature on edublogging 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).

I agree with the necessity of dialogue. Jurgen Habermas (1974) identified the pivotal role of dialogue, and identified dangers of monological self-reflection, which occurs to student edubloggers who receive limited feedback at the initial stages of their learning journeys: Self-reflection by a lone student necessitates a split of one part of the self from another part so that the student can provide feedback to oneself at a later time. Yet the self-talk is open to distortions. To prevent this, it is crucial to extend the hermeneutic circle to develop a critical community of conversation. Such a community depends upon dialogical reflection to then expose and remedy contradictions and distortions in thinking. Such a critical community of conversation is guided by an instructor's scaffolding, 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).

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. Edu-blogging is an act of agency, of self-transformation, and it is a combination of blogging-as-action, and blogging-as-artifact. Blogging software is "a cultural artifact which facilitate a social process in which exchange and participation are conditions to enacting citizenship" (van Dijck, 2004, pg. 8).

Edu-blogs that outlast the confines of formal instruction serve an additional function: An enduring edu-blog formalizes a running, evolving dialogue and conversation between mentors and learners, providing a narrative stretched across time and experience.

References:

Anderson, T. (2009). Edubloggers as a Network of Practice, blog post in Virtual Canuck. Retrieved March 1, 2009, from http://terrya.edublogs.org/2009/02/28/edublogers-as-a-network-of-practice/

Habermas, J. (1974). Theory and practice. Boston: Beacon Press.

Van Dijck, J. (2009). Composing the Self: Of Diaries and Lifelogs, in FibreCulture Journal, Issue 3. Retrieved March 1, 2009, from http://journal.fibreculture.org/issue3/issue3_vandijck.html