Blogging is more than just online journaling and sharing your “inner-most thoughts” (When you consider the social and professional ramifications associated with Web 2.0 technology, who would want to do that anyway?). Consider Richardson’s examples of writing versus blogging on pages 30-31 of Blogs, Wikis, and Podcasts. Blogging allows you to become part of the conversation; it moves the locus of control from major media outlets to the average consumer, allowing you to become a producer of information as well! Now that is exciting to me because in a democratic society, shouldn’t we all have a voice and a platform for that voice?
With that voice, though, comes great social responsibility. Consider how many times you have visited You Tube and seen comments where people are posting any of the following: hateful things that have nothing to do with the posted video, declarations of love for the song used or the celebrity shown in the image, or comments filled with misspellings and grammatical errors. Seriously? I don’t know about you, but I certainly have trouble taking what those posters are saying seriously, thereby diminishing the potential impact of their voice in the Web 2.0 environment. Sister Salad has a great video about such wack comments!
You will have an opportunity to contribute to the professional conversation in the ELA field this semester by creating your own blog! You never know who will read it beyond this class either! Several semesters ago I created a book blog to share my reading with my ENGL 3391 students. I never imagined authors would read it and comment, but both Robert Lipsyte and Marc Aronson did! So seriously consider how you professionally present yourself in this pervasive online environment; you never know who you will meet!
Maybe, Highschools should incorporate their own website such as You Tube. In turn we could limit the material absorbed by their scrub like brains, including pointless comments and inappropriate videos
Think about it, a tech department designed specifically to suit the needs and young adolescents in public/private institutions.