Study with the several resources on Docsity
Earn points by helping other students or get them with a premium plan
Prepare for your exams
Study with the several resources on Docsity
Earn points to download
Earn points by helping other students or get them with a premium plan
Community
Ask the community for help and clear up your study doubts
Discover the best universities in your country according to Docsity users
Free resources
Download our free guides on studying techniques, anxiety management strategies, and thesis advice from Docsity tutors
Material Type: Paper; Professor: Oakley; Class: ECCE: Internet in American Life; Subject: Computer Science; University: University of Illinois Springfield; Term: Spring 2006;
Typology: Papers
1 / 11
This page cannot be seen from the preview
Don't miss anything!
[Student Name Deleted] PAC 442 B March 24, 2006 'Cause in my head there's a Greyhound station Where I send my thoughts to far-off destinations So they many have a chance of finding a place where they're far more suited then here -Soul Meets Body Death Cab for Cutie
The Art of Blogging The Internet has had many significant impacts on my life. As an online student, I use it daily to further my education. I use it for banking and bill paying. I utilize the Internet to research products as well as to buy and sell items. However, the greatest influence that the Internet has had on my life is in the area of communication. Until a few years ago, I kept in contact with my family and friends through email and web pages. Then I discovered the power of blogging and quickly realized its potential as a communication tool for keeping in touch with my loved ones. However, blogging turned out to be much more than a type of communication. For me, blogging has become a place to journal my everyday life, a way to make new friends, an educational tool, as well as a place to express my creativity. I began reading blogs about two years ago. Many members of my husband's family have blogs and I enjoyed being able to keep in touch with their lives via their blogs. My husband has one also, although he rarely makes an entry on it. I wrote a few entries on his blog, but soon decided that I wanted to start my own. Still, I never quite got around to setting one up. One night, I was Googling my old high school friends, a pastime that I sometimes enjoy on a quiet night. I came across a web page created by my best friend in junior high, Wendi. I emailed her, and the next morning I had a very long and enthusiastic response waiting for me. She directed me to her LiveJournal blog and recommended that I open one also. I did and soon I found myself writing in it every day. I decided it would be an excellent way for me to keep in touch with my extended family members. Living in Arizona, we are a long way away from our parents and most of our
around the house. I mistakenly assumed if I wrote about any given event in my blog, that was good enough and they'd read about it eventually. I learned that this wasn't the case when the phone rang one evening. It was my father in law and his first words were "Why didn't you tell me you had a rattlesnake in your front yard?! I had to hear it second hand from your brother." I had written about it in my LiveJournal (here is the entry: http://mysteena.livejournal.com/50430.html ), posted pictures and left it at that. It hadn't occurred to me to call the family and tell them about the rattlesnake adventure. This was a good reminder for me, that although I consider my blog a primary form of communication, it doesn't mean that all my family members will take the time to read it. Now, when I post something of significance, I send an email out to alert the family. Another aspect of blogging that fosters communication is the comment feature. Almost all blogs, LiveJournal included, allow comments to be made about what the author has written. This allows my family members and friends to comment on what I have written, or comment on each others comments. For example, I enjoy reading what my mom has to say about my son's most recent temper tantrum; she often puts things into a perspective that I, as a frustrated mom with a screaming kid, have a hard time seeing. The commenting feature of blogging is not only convenient for communicating with people I already know, but it also has allowed me to meet many new people. In fact, "commenting" is one of the unique features to blogging that has helped foster its popularity. The Napa Valley Register reports that "Blogs try to build community by encouraging commenting by one and all." (3) As a blogger, you must be ready to deal with comments from anyone who ventures across your blog. Thankfully, most people are
polite and I've only been burned once in my own experience. I guess that's what I get for suggesting that Hayden Christensen made a good Darth Vader. The sense of community created by blogging has also been a good way for me to make new friends. Before I began blogging, I had never made friends through cyberspace. Now, I have several new friends who I've met in various ways on the LiveJournal website. As Melissa commented in class, "I think one of the main reasons that at least the informal blogs are so popular is that it draws together lots of different people with shared interests. Human beings are always looking for others like ourselves to identify with." (4) Most of my friends I have made because we share common interests. However, I have also made friends through some of the communities that I've joined. One of my friends, Dawn, I met in an LDS parenting community. It turned out that she lived in the same town as I do and her children are close in age to mine. We now communicate on a regular basis through IM's or phone calls and we plan to meet in "real life" sometime soon. My friendship with Wendi, my best friend from junior high, has certainly strengthened as a result of blogging. She updates her journal on a regular basis which enables me to read and comment on her life almost everyday. It is almost as if we are in junior high again, passing notes back and forth to each other. We also encourage each other in our daily challenges and help each other through tough times. Then again, it is not just Wendi who I share this strengthening bond with. I've found that many of my blogging friends offer encouragement and support to me in times of hardship, and I can also help them as well. About a year ago my mother-in-law was diagnosed with Non- Hodgkin's Lymphoma. As this type of cancer is almost always terminal, this was a
receiving lots of helpful ideas. I was then able to incorporate these new sources into my paper. (6) Another aspect in which blogging has helped supplement my education has been the daily act of writing. For me, just sitting down and writing something new everyday on my blog has sharpened my writing skills. I've gotten more articulate in my writing and I've become more adept at describing exactly what it is that I'm trying to say. My writing vocabulary has expanded as I try to avoid using the same words over and over again. As it turns out, I am not alone in the use of blogging to hone academic abilities. Many scholars have started turning to blogging as a way to share their ideas with others as well as to receive feedback. In an article arguing that all scholars should devote time to blogging, reporter James McConvill states: Yes, books and articles are of some service and it is a credit to academics to complete a book or write an article which is accepted by a reputable journal, but we cannot any longer discount the value of blogging. Blogging is not a distraction from scholarship - instead it should be recognized as being one of the most effective mechanisms for scholarship. As University of Illinois law Professor Larry Ribstein recently commented on his blog, Ideoblog, “a blog that focuses on ideas can be no distraction at all, but rather part of what scholarship ought to be - the pursuit of knowledge”. (7) He goes on to argue that blogging will help academics sharpen their writing skills because an argument that can be presented in 10,000 words in an article must be condensed to 1,000 for a blog entry. Also, he makes the valid point that many journal articles can take up to 3 years to get published after they are finished. By this time, the scholarship may no longer be fresh. However, a blog entry is instantaneous. (7) I'm glad to see that the academic world is being encouraged to embrace blogging and would personally love to read blogs written by my favorite scholars. The most refreshing difference that blogging has made in my life has been to cultivate my creativity. I have always enjoyed photography, yet I had forgotten just how
much over the course of the years. When I began blogging I listed photography as one of my interests. I was immediately was "friended" by two other LiveJournal members who were interested in photography. These new friends introduced me to their favorite photography communities and before long I found myself posting pictures to the communities. My favorite communities are the treasure hunt type, where a theme or challenge is given at the beginning of each week. Users are encouraged to take and post photos that fulfill the requirements of the treasure hunt. For example, last week's challenges were sticky, round and small. (8) Besides the photography communities, I greatly enjoy capturing the beauty in my everyday world and posting those pictures in my regular blog. Last week we traveled to Nogales, Mexico and I was able to post several pictures of our trip to my LiveJournal (http://mysteena.livejournal.com/163069.html#cutid1) Not only does this give me a chance to express my creativity, but it also allows my extended family to see what we've been doing. Blogs have the great potential of being read by many, many people. Although I use my blog for more personal pursuits such as photography or daily journaling, many people devote their blogs to politics or pop culture. Sometimes, blogging is criticized as attempting to replace "real" journalism. However, most bloggers aren't trying to replace journalism, but simply want to supplement it. It is no longer necessary that we get our news from only the traditional sources. If we want to read about first hand accounts of the war in Iraq, we can find blogs written by Iraqis to tell us what is happening right outside their front door (9). Blogging provides an opportunity for any and all internet users to write about any topic they please. For me, it has been a wonderful creative outlet as well
Works Cited
