Blogging certainly takes time, one of the most valuable commodities to those of us in Academia. More than one instructor I’ve chatted with this semester has told me they played with setting up a blog, but “who has the time to keep it going?” That’s a hard statement to argue with, but Henry Jenkins, professor of Comparative Media Studies at MIT discusses the value of blogs, particularly for those of us in Higher Education, in his blog post Why Academics Should Blog… Jenkins sees tools like blogs as having a transformative power in how we conduct scholarly work, and makes some points that might be worth consideration for folks who haven’t set up a blog or are wondering if they should stick with the blogs they have recently built.
For undergraduate and graduate students, Jenkins suggests that maintaining a blog provides a project that can keep students engaged and actively writing about their areas of academic and professional interest. Because blogs can be easily constructed and shared with others, there is innate potential for students to build community with other student bloggers and share feedback on their ideas. Jenkins suggests that particularly well crafted blogs inevitably draw attention from other professionals in a student’s field of interest, thus serving as an important networking tool. Jenkins uses his own academic blog to showcase student work and suggests that more faculty might follow this tactic or collaborate with others in their field to build team blogs. I’m personally a fan of group blogs for providing a variety of viewpoints (as well as sharing the burden of updating), but so far we haven’t seen that practice catch on much with UMass bloggers.
For faculty, Jenkins sees blog as filling a critical opportunity for “just-in-time scholarship” that allows for thoughtful reactions and commentary on current events. He describes how some instructors are using the short form nature of blog posts as a starting point for in class discussions and activities. Jenkins also sees his own use of a blog as an important component of his writing process; both as a place to share and discuss ideas with a community of readers, and also as a venue for sharing those great tidbits that don’t quite fit into the article or book chapter your writing.
Keeping any blog running takes time, and Jenkins acknowledges that it is a commitment, but suggest that the commitment must be seen in the larger picture of professional obligations as an academic. As many bloggers will tell you, having a routine is key to keeping your blog going, and Jenkins stresses the importance of a schedule. Even if you plan to update your blog once a month with a few sentences about what your reading, what’s happening in your teaching, or the great conference session you attended, sticking to that schedule is what counts. Personally, I have found that setting deadlines for writing, and sticking to them even when you don’t always feel up to it, is important not just for blogging, but as a set of habits I can build through blogging that inevitably helps with my academic and professional writing projects.
Read Henry Jenkins’s full post “Why Academics Should Blog” at:
http://www.henryjenkins.org/2008/04/why_academics_should_blog.html
Learn about the UMass Blogs service and set up your own blog at: