Terry’s Blog

James Farmer of Deakin University is a designer, educator, writer and technologist living and working in Melbourne, Australia. He keeps the blog, incorporated subversion, is the founder of IncSub (online education) and runs a blog consultancy through Blogsavvy. Blogsavvy has an educational blog,
http://blogsavvy.net/category/blogging-for-education/

In a post How not to use blogs in education http://blogsavvy.net/how-not-to-use-blogs-in-education James says:

“Group blogs are a bad idea and don’t work: Sure there’s a place for collaborative/group blogs but that place is not in education. Blogs work well for individuals… they are tools of centred communication and pretty far removed from community management systems….”

I’d like to see examples of group blogs that do and don’t work. I suspect they work perfectly well in some circumstances. The question is, as always, what circumstances?

See the companion post, http://blogsavvy.net/how-you-should-use-blogs-in-education

In his incsub blog, Incorporated Subversion, a post Educause, eduforge or edublog? http://incsub.org/blog/2005/educause-eduforge-or-edublog he seems to suggest blogs are highly individualised entities and are somehow best used and developed as aspects of an individual’s total persona. This may link to the claim mentioned above that group blogs don’t work and blogs are an inappropriate tool for group contribution/collaboration. Richard Wyles counters by saying he, as an individual, has many roles and interests and could write different blogs for each of them and implies each would have a different readership and plug into a different community.

I think I am with Richard on this one. I am a member of many different communities and to some extent have a different identity and persona in each. I am a different person in each and it is a common sociological phenomenon that when an individual is confronted by two normally discrete audiences, say on graduation day when ‘cool’ student friends and doting parents are simultaneously present, he or she can experience some discomfort and embarrassment as they try to carry off two different personas at the same time.

I would probably find setting up a blog to address all of my different groups and communities would make me feel uncomfortably egocentric as the only thing my potential readership might have in common is me. The implicit assumption is that I am the main focus and purpose of the blog. Of course, that might work for some! However, a more focussed readership around a topic that I am interested in would be more obviously focused on the topic and our shared interest.

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