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Education Opinion

What is the Purpose of Blogging?

By LeaderTalk Contributor — January 05, 2009 1 min read
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Time is a very important commodity, and there is never enough of it in the day. I could use more time at school visiting classrooms, talking with students, working with teachers, and meeting with parents. I could use more time at home, too. I would like more time to play with my kids, fix and clean up around the house, and of course, I would like more quiet time with my wife.

As the end of 2008 was approaching, I began to reflect on my reasons for spending time blogging. This reflection started as a result of my launching a new personal blog and ending my “relationship” with my first blog which was owned by my school district. On this new blog I will continue to write about education related issues, and I will continue to offer my opinions about teaching, learning, and school. But now I feel as if I have a little more freedom to write about family, sports, entertainment, and other interests.

Well, all of this reflecting led me to wondering if anyone really cares about my opinions on education, my interests, or my family. This begs the the question “what is the purpose of blogging?” Is it to write what you want to write or to write what people want to read? In other words, do we blog for ourselves or for others?

I am not the only blogger asking these kinds of questions. Frank Buck (on Dec. 29) and Melinda Miller have expressed similar thoughts in recent posts. Will Richardson has recently written about blogging as well. Will is blogging a lot less than he used to, and he is expecting that the “trend line for my blogging may continue downward in 2009, perhaps not as steeply, but downward nonetheless.”

This led me to wonder if blogging is falling out of favor in the blogosphere. Maybe the “golden age” of blogging has come and gone. Twitter seems to be all the rage these days. It sure takes less time and effort to tweet than to post. So, with the new year upon us, how do you feel about blogging? Are you still planning to post on your blogs in 2009 as you have done in the past?

Dave Sherman

The opinions expressed in LeaderTalk are strictly those of the author(s) and do not reflect the opinions or endorsement of Editorial Projects in Education, or any of its publications.