Thing #4 Blogging Begins With Reading

I consider myself a literate person, perhaps not an avid reader, but I usually have at least one book going and I subscribe to a few too many magazines. But I had never read blogs before today.

Blogs are personal and they should be interesting to the reader. As you start scanning a blog, and it doesn't interest you there is no reason to linger, just go on to the next. Blogs seem to be all about finding ideas, personalities and stories that you find interesting. Magazine content will focus on particular fields of interest; think about what you might expect to find in Time, National Geographic, Sky and Telescope, Vermont Life, or Wine Spectator. But Blogs are focused on whatever maybe the interests of the author(s). The topics will be eclectic but they all flow from the same source, be it one author, a particular student class, or or some other group.

Many of the bloggers I read tended to be opinionated. I guess that makes sense, the people drawn to blogging would be those that feel compelled to share their ideas. Educational blogging can also be about creating a space were students are encouraged to share their reactions to their learning in the classroom. I thought Scribe Post was a cool idea and I was impressed with the quality of the posts.

Unlike this post. And this too exemplifies more of the qualities of some of the blogs that I read today. I noticed that blogs tend to be personal, transparent, unpolished, often a work in progress.