“Do I even need a traditional blog?”: Expediency vs. Exposition
One of the people I follow on Twitter, (jeff)isageek, asked the question today: “With services like friendfeed, twitter, disqus, google reader, del.icio.us, etc [sic] do i even need a ‘traditional’ blog?”
From the standpoint of eLearning and educational technology, my answer is a resounding: Yes.
Sure, it’s important to evaluate new technologies in terms of how they can be used to embetter our online activities - and more importantly our offline activities - however this must be ever tempered by proper investigation and inquiry. Immediately flocking to the next new trend without thoroughly investigating the last one is detrimental to all technologies involved; not to mention the people that use them. This is especially critical for education.
New technologies are emerging at a phenomenal pace, and perhaps not surprisingly this has served to whip up an ever-present sense of excitement and anticipation in which people are constantly looking for the next great innovation to top the last one. In some regards this is a very valuable trend for the industry, because passion and enthusiasm breed interest and uptake, and people who may have once ignored the possibilities offered by eLearning and web technologies may perhaps begin to consider them.
In the same breath though the danger in this is that users may afford new tools an overinflated sense of value fanned by the flames of media hype. The important task for users therefore - and particularly for educators - is to ensure these technologies are evaluated and analysed according to their own merit, rather than the ever fickle waves of pop culture influence; lest we fall prey to the curse of implementing technology for technologies sake.
In the case of brand new so-called lifestreaming technologies, advocates seem to place a tremdous amount of value on the speed of use and real-time interaction they afford users. Ideas that were once allocated several hundred words are now crammed into 140 characters. Speed is being afforded more consideration than thorough contextual elaboration.
This is what blogs facilitate that technologies like Twitter and Friendfeed cannot. They provide space for carefully considered contemplation and reflection in which time requirements are secondary (if that) and accuracy and thoroughness of information and thought are of the utmost importance. In keeping with this the comments and discussion that take place on blogs facilitate more considered responses, and are often times vehicles for investigation and reflection in their own right.
For certain industries, or social spheres, blogs may be quaint and passe; but they are not, and should not be perceived as such for education.
This is not to say that the aforementioned “friendfeed, twitter, disqus, google reader, [and] del.icio.us” do not or may not serve valuable purposes. Real time communication tools, RSS readers and feed aggregators, social bookmarking tools, and discussion tools all have their uses - in fact they can be incredibly valuable. The importance is to allow sufficient time to realise their true value (or lack thereof) before discarding older technologies.
The point: By all means, try everything; but evaluate them properly and thoroughly. And remember, ‘traditional’ doesn’t always mean obsolete.
