Blogging—Waste of Time or Wave of the Future?
Mary Sellers
July 21, 2006
PHAA Conference, Carlisle, PA
Blogs seem to be taking over the world. It seems like everyone and their cat has a blog now days! We hear stories in the news of people loosing their jobs over things posted on a blog. We hear of candidates running for office keeping blogs to update their supporters. But, is all this hoopla justified? Are blogs really worth the time and effort so many people seem to put into them?
Before we answer this question, a history of the blog and how it came to be the phenomenon that it is might be helpful. First of all, the name “blog” is a shortening of the original name, which was “Web log.” In 1999, an early blogger, Peter Merholz, wrote in the corner of his weblog, “We blog” (changing the spacing of the letters). The name stuck, and “Blog” was born. A blog is an online journal—it’s what you’d read on the screen. A blogger is someone who keeps a blog, and blogging is the act of updating a blog or commenting on others’ blogs. The blogosphere would be all the blogs on the internet.
In the late nineties, blogs were just beginning. Blogs were run by people who knew computer programming and had their own websites. For the most part, they found links to webpages and made comments on them. The idea of these commentaries caught on, and others picked up on the idea. Instead of scouring the web for obscure, interesting sites, people began to make comments on things they were thinking or on things they had seen or heard. With the advent of programs like Blogger and sites like Xanga, people with little to no computer skills could have a blog. In 1997, there were only 100 Xanga accounts. By December of 2005, there were fifty MILLION Xanga accounts. This does not take into account the number of blogs hosted by other sites such as MySpace, Blogspot, and so on.
So, what if there are a lot of blogs out there? Is there any benefit to having a blog or to reading blogs? Yes, I feel that there is great benefit in blogging for your teens, for your homeschool, and for you personally.
I’ve got a few teenagers at home, know many teens from church, and I’ve taught a number of teens online. Perhaps because I’ve been an online teacher for PA Homeschoolers, I don’t find it odd to communicate with someone totally online. Teens don’t seem to find it odd at all. The computer is just another phone line. Email is just another way to mail a letter. Communicating with friends via blogs isn’t strange to them the way it might seem strange to us. As a matter of fact, for homeschooled teens, blogging is an excellent way to meet like-minded people and to develop friendships with these people. Now, for some of you the red flags are going up. “But, what if someone pretends to be a nice homeschooler when they are really a pervert out to lure my child?” Why don’t we look at a few blogs and get a feel for the blogging community.
I have blogs at two sites, Xanga and Homeschoolblogger. I find that Xanga is much easier to navigate if you are looking to find like-minded folks or to build a community of friends, so that’s where we’ll look first. This is my Xanga site. Xanga is just one of many blog sites out there. And, if you are wondering what Xanga means, here’s what Xanga itself had to say, “We just wanted a name that sounded fun, but was still short and sweet. Xanga fit the bill.” Xanga sites are customizable, so you can change the look or the font or load pictures and so on. But, we aren’t going to focus on that right now. Instead, we’ll look at some of the ways one can navigate a site. The first thing to notice is the address. Most blogs have the blog host name and a slash, then the username. Most blogs are arranged in two or three columns. One column is the actual blog entries, the things the writer typed in. The other column usually has a picture and a bunch of links. In Xanga, the links on the side allow you to subscribe to a blog, which means that new entries will be emailed to you; to read more about the blogger by clicking on a link to read a profile; and to help you to connect to a wider group of people via individual contacts and through blogrings. For example, if you came to my blog and really liked it, you might click on a link for one of the people who subscribe to my blog who are listed on the side.
I’d like to take you through the steps of setting up a blog and how to search for like-minded folks. The first thing to do is to go to Xanga.com.
Actually sign up for a Xanga site and go through the steps.
Now, we have a basic site. Actually, we have two sites, a public one, the one everyone will see, and a private one with all the control links. Let’s look at the private site for a moment and some of the links.
Explain
· New weblog entry
· Upload photos
· Your profile
· Protected posting
· Feedback Log
· Guestbook
· Look and Feel
There are lots of ways to customize the site, but I’m not going to talk about how to make your site look pretty. Your teen can help you with that!
Even if you don’t have an account, you can search blogrings and individual blogs. You don’t have to have your own blog to read the blogs of others, but you do need an account to make comments and to join blogrings. Now what are blogrings? What happens when you join one? Think of a blog ring wearing a Penn State sweatshirt. You have a label identifying your interest and your support, but you don’t really have to do anything because of it. A blogring is a way for people to see what your interests are and for you to easily find the blogs of others who share your interest.
Let’s search for a blogring. Go back to www.Xanga.com. At the top of the page, you’ll see a clickable for “blogrings.” Click on this, and the color changes to orange. Type an interest in the box—homeschooling, history, writing, Christian—whatever. Let’s type in “homeschool” to see what we get.
You’ll see some sponsor links and a number. According to this page, there are 536 blogrings which have something to do with homeschooling. So, how do you find one which will garner like-minded friends? There are a few tips to make the process easier. I like to find blogrings with between fifteen and fifty people in them. A small number might mean that it is just a person and one or two of his friends in the ring. A larger number means that there might be people associated with the blogring with whom you might not like to be associated, even if the connection is just as casual as both “wearing the same sweatshirt.” Secondly, I look at the description of the blog. Poor grammar, negative talk, and expletives immediately rule out a blogring from my consideration. Another thing I look to see is if the blogs are being updated often. Of the fifty million blogs on Xanga, many are abandoned or never were used at all.
Let’s scroll down through the list and see if we can find a ring which might be acceptable to us. (Go through the list, check out rings, pointing out the three criteria).
If you find a group you like, you can subscribe to it. I joined the blogring “Homeschool Christian Blogging Moms.” When I did, I prepared a little intro message about myself, visited the sites of those I found most interesting in the blogring, and left my message as a comment. Blog etiquette is such that if someone visits your site and leaves a comment, normally that blogger will visit your site and leave a comment. If they like what you’ve had to say, they might even subscribe or check back often to read your updates. Then, a friendship is formed.
Remember those red flags I mentioned? I feel that blogging is safer than many other forms of online communication. When someone writes a blog entry, it’s there for everyone to see. When someone posts a comment to that entry, it’s there for everyone to see. There is no clandestine sneaking. Mom and Dad can read the entries and comments every day without feeling as if they are prying into something private. However, with email, it does seem like spying to read email without permission. IM conversations are not saved, and chat rooms are similar. Unless Mom or Dad are sitting right at the computer when these IM chat are happening, they’d have no idea what was said. Another safety feature of blogs is that blogs on some sites can be privacy protected so that only those people to whom you give permission can read the blog. Now, if you were trying to gain some new friends, a private blog would be detrimental, but if you had a younger child or were truly concerned about privacy, this option might be the best.
Another red flag is found on sites like Xanga which do not screen for content. I do not recommend randomly reading blogs, especially the popular blogs listed on the home page. Often there is swearing and sometimes there are questionable photos. You’ll need to let your children know that searching some blog sites is best done with someone by his or her side for accountability.
Why would you want to go through all this trouble and hassle to set up a blog, search for blogrings and other bloggers, type your own entries, and visit the sites of others to leave comments? Isn’t this a lot of work with little value? I don’t think so. I feel that blogs have many positive benefits.
Teens enjoy the internet, and they enjoy friends. Blogs combine the two nicely, and friendships are formed. Also, current friends can keep in touch and find out what is going on in the lives of others. My son has a blog, and he uses it to keep in touch with former AP classmates and friends from church. Yes, he sees them on Sunday, but the little bit of time between services and after church isn’t enough to talk fully about the week for a teen. Plus, it keeps him off the phone!
Blogs also have homeschool benefit. One blogring I discovered was The Wayside Inn Writer’s Society. This blogring is made up mostly of homeschooled teenage girls who love to write. They share their stories and plot ideas, their struggles in writing, and their successes in research and writing. In return, they have a supportive community of fellow writers who offer suggestions and a pat on the back. Another teen I know joined a blogring for runners to encourage her as she pursued her hobby of running. There are a number of blogs which discuss political and religious issues, giving those teens who love to debate and discuss a valuable outlet for their thoughts and ideas.
I often hear parents lament that their teens aren’t interested in writing. A blog is a great way to inspire teens to write. You can give them free reign in the composition of their entries—what I did today, for example. Or, you could give them some guidance and have them keep a writing assignment journal online. Respond to a quote, what do you think about the war in Iraq, what have you been learning from the Bible, and so on… The comments they receive from others, especially from their peers, can keep them writing often.
Another From http://www.rebeccablood.net/essays/weblog_history.html
This profound experience may be most purely realized in the blog-style weblog. Lacking a focus on the outside world, the blogger is compelled to share his world with whomever is reading. He may engage other bloggers in conversation about the interests they share. He may reflect on a book he is reading, or the behavior of someone on the bus. He might describe a flower that he saw growing between the cracks of a sidewalk on his way to work. Or he may simply jot notes about his life: what work is like, what he had for dinner, what he thought of a recent movie. These fragments, pieced together over months, can provide an unexpectedly intimate view of what it is to be a particular individual in a particular place at a particular time.
The blogger, by virtue of simply writing down whatever is on his mind, will be confronted with his own thoughts and opinions. Blogging every day, he will become a more confident writer. A community of 100 or 20 or 3 people may spring up around the public record of his thoughts. Being met with friendly voices, he may gain more confidence in his view of the world; he may begin to experiment with longer forms of writing, to play with haiku, or to begin a creative project--one that he would have dismissed as being inconsequential or doubted he could complete only a few months before.
As he enunciates his opinions daily, this new awareness of his inner life may develop into a trust in his own perspective. His own reactions--to a poem, to other people, and, yes, to the media--will carry more weight with him. Accustomed to expressing his thoughts on his website, he will be able to more fully articulate his opinions to himself and others. He will become impatient with waiting to see what others think before he decides, and will begin to act in accordance with his inner voice instead. Ideally, he will become less reflexive and more reflective, and find his own opinions and ideas worthy of serious consideration.
His readers will remember an incident from their own childhood when the blogger relates a memory. They might look more closely at the other riders on the train after the blogger describes his impressions of a fellow commuter. They will click back and forth between blogs and analyze each blogger's point of view in a multi-blog conversation, and form their own conclusions on the matter at hand. Reading the views of other ordinary people, they will readily question and evaluate what is being said. Doing this, they may begin a similar journey of self-discovery and intellectual self-reliance.
The promise of the web was that everyone could publish, that a thousand voices could flourish, communicate, connect. The truth was that only those people who knew how to code a web page could make their voices heard. Blogger, Pitas, and all the rest have given people with little or no knowledge of HTML the ability to publish on the web: to pontificate, remember, dream, and argue in public, as easily as they send an instant message. We can't seriously compare the creation of the World Wide Web itself with the availability of free technology that allows anyone with a web browser to express their unique, irreproducible vision to the rest of the world...can we?
Lest you think blogs are just for teenagers, think again! As I mentioned, I have two blogs, both of which I enjoy. My blogs have allowed me to keep in touch with friends who have moved away, family members, former students, and local friends. Instead of individual emails or phone calls, a blog entry which I know will be read by a wider audience can keep people up-to-date on what’s going on in my life. In return, I’m kept “in the know” with others. Friendships have deepened because the time I might not have had to make a phone call was used instead to read about how a friend was doing.
I’ve also been encouraged in my homeschool journey and in my faith through blogging. Asking questions about things I’ve been reading in my Bible or struggles I might have had with my children or in my own life has elicited many encouraging comments. Www.homeschoolblogger.com is a wonderful blog site for homeschooling moms. Unlike Xanga’s fifty million blogs, Homeschoolblogger only has 6,000 blogs. Xanga doesn’t screen for foul language or inappropriate photos. Homeschoolblogger does. Also, I’ve never seen prettier websites than I have on Homeschoolblogger. You sign up for a site in a similar way that you do to Xanga, except Homeschoolblogger doesn’t have blogrings. Instead, you list interests that you have such as reading, quilting, and so on and you are able to find others with those interests. I find the site is more difficult to navigate, but it is worth it to discover the wisdom and encouragement of thousands of homeschool moms. And, these moms aren’t your average moms! I’ve found more authors on this site than I expected.
One friend I made at Homeschoolblogger is Marybeth Whalen. Her blog site is listed on your handout if you’d like to read more of her wise words. She prepared a talk on blogging and was kind enough to share her notes with me. Even though her audience was a bit different than mine, I thought I’d share her summary comments with some comments of my own.
If you blog, blog for God. Many homeschoolers in this room are devoted Christians who are eager to share their faith. Sharing our spiritual journey and attesting to the power of God in our own lives can encourage others in their struggles. Also, a blog gives new meaning to the word “e-vangelism”!
Blog for future generations. Wouldn’t you love to have been able to read your great-grandmother’s blog? To know her thoughts and feelings and to glimpse what her days were like? Many of us say we would like to keep a journal, but how many of us have followed through? A blog gives you an incentive to record your thoughts and impressions for your children, grandchildren, and beyond.
Blog for the Community at Large. You can connect with others and build relationships. You can build up your local community by encouraging other friends who have blogs and keep a closer relationship with those far away.
Blog because you love to! Sometimes we do things because they give us joy. There is no shame in writing because you love to.
To blog or not to blog—that is the question. I hope this talk has given you a better understanding of blogging, how to set up a blog, and the many benefits of blogging for both you and your children.