Blinded by the Blogger Goggles

Blog, Blog, Blog and Blog

Blogging as a writing assignment offers a range of educational benefits. They encourage students (and well, people) to express themselves creatively and develop their writing skills in a format that's relevant to modern communication. These digital outlets of literature promote critical thinking as students research topics, form opinions, and engage with comments as feedback. In it all, they foster digital literacy by familiarizing students with online platforms and responsible online etiquette. 

Blogs have the power to incorporate meanings of professionalism, creativity, civic engagement and personalism. In my own blogging experience, I find that a few entries of mine stick out in these categories: 

Professionalism. 
I find that I naturally speak with the intention of being heard. In my experience, my age and appearance have made my ideas and voice seem less important, so to make up for it I try to speak in ways that make me sound important, mature, and wise to those who have deceived my ideas. It’s not the ideal to be judged on how one communicates, but it does help me in ways I couldn’t ever imagine. I find that most of my blog posts incorporate a little bit of professionalism and “corporate talk”. 

Creativity/Multi-Modality. 
My all-about-me collage allowed me to explore my own identities through multi-modal work. I thoroughly enjoyed displaying my own work through a personal anecdote. It felt joyous, not forced. 

Civic Engagement. 
My online zine, Water for Change, highlighted youth leadership through eco-narratives. I found it most impactful to fully encompass all aspects of civic engagement to matters that currently affect all people. Water scarcity, climate narratives, the activism within them, and the of advocation from student engagement is something that can be transferred and applied to most students. We can all take action—activism is about passion, not about age or expertise. 

A blog I would like to nominate for the most influential and impactful response from a reader’s perspective is Collin Parker’s blog. His response to multiple theoretical and perspective concepts are insightful, engaging, and well-spoken. My favorite one has to be “Developing the Person” I mean…just refer to this little blurb about writing coach work: 
“Fully-formed learning is devoted, joyful, rewarding and sprinkled with insanity. Developing a writer, then, might actually look like developing the person. Writers are assembly lines and word count codes...”

Reading blog posts have been such a low-stakes outlet for transferring interpretations of information. I’ve loved understanding and getting to share these experiences with my favorite classmates.