Thing #4: Exploring Blog Posts

It is apparent when looking at different blogs, that the writing style is really that of the writer. It depends on what the writer wants to reader to get out of it. For example, in Patrick's update, it is obvious that formal writing is not his objective. He is expressing his thoughts for the world to hear. He just wants to be heard. On the other hand, the Blog by School Library Journal seems to be much more professionally done. You can tell that they expect visitors, and they have adds for different products that might be used by those visitors.

I think that Blogs are very unique in that we, as readers, can find subjects to read about that interest us as individuals. They also allow us to actually talk to the author. When have we ever been able to do that before. Not only can we talk to the author of the Blog, but as seen in Questions for One of Our Favorite Authors: Grace Lin, we can also converse with authors of novels. This is an experience that few can say they've had before.

The one concern that I have about using Blogs as a form of instruction is that students might find a Blog pertaining to a certain topic and regard it as fact, when in fact it may not be. I suppose the more Blogs are used in the classroom, the more students would realize that Blogs are thoughts of a specific individual though, not necessarily the apparent truth on a subject matter. That is where web literacy comes in.

I've never had a blog before, so this is an interesting journey for me! It has been good to look at other Blogs and know what is out there.