Responses…with added rants….
I was very surprised by the amount of feedback from my post about the garbage in the blogosphere. Interestingly enough, I guess that comment has to be qualified….the blogs I encountered were more “diaries” of personal lives/ experiences or reflections on events that I had little or no interest in, or of questionable source or validity. Yes, I found that to be, in my view, this one man’s garbage( or another man/woman’s treasure?)
So I post the question. What is a “worthy blog”? Experience of the writer in an area? Academic credentials? I understand from my readings and viewings to date that the “news” of the world has been taken from the hands of “elite” and placed into the hands of the populace….. I wonder how Plato would react to blogs in his vision of Utopia?
Wikipedia is in the middle of a similar controversy. One example can be found in a Techspot which I believe hatched the opposing camps of those who would like to leave wikipedia open to all to edit vs those who would like to have a chosen view maintain wikipedia…. I think by the very premise that there is a group in wikipedia that is “chagrined” is a topic unto itself.
You ask the question “what is a worthy blog”. I am not a blogoshere expert. My passion is literacy development and so I will respond to this question from this construct. Purpose in reading and writing of great importance. Therefore, I would have to say a worthy blog depends on the readers/writers purpose. If my one’s purpose is to share an experience, one already has high credentials. I don’t think one really must have a certain academic credential to blog. Blogging helps to build credentials.
As a reader of blogs, I search out entries that interest me or in the case of this course might answer questions and help me to think a little more deeply about what I am doing. What might interest me may be of little interest to others. That’s the beauty of the blog for me.
Here is a link to one of our reading this week and talks about passionate users.
http://headrush.typepad.com/creating_passionate_users/2006/01/crash_course_in.html
The author explains that learning is a form of co-creation between the learner and the learning experience. The bloggers job is to create an environment where the chances of the learner “getting it” in the way that you intend are as high as possible. Many suggestions are given for creating an interesting, motivating blog.