Blogging: Build your professional reputation

Martin Weller describes the benefits of blogging for university faculty in Encouraging educators to blog. In doing so, he made some excellent points about improving and expanding the professional reputation of faculty. One point seems particularly relevant to Extension professionals--both at the local and state level.

If your subject area is not one widely engaged with blogging then this represents a good opportunity to establish yourself as one of the lead experts.

He also describes two benefits of blogging in the context of teaching.

• Link to teaching – the type of content used in courses is increasingly diverse, and one model for including up to date information is to have feeds from a number of blogs incorporated in to teaching material.

  Eating our own dog food - increasingly students are encouraged to use blogs in courses, and so we should be demonstrating how they can be effective.

Of course, Martin also has other excellent posts on social networking and education. An everyday, modern learning experience describes a series of conversations that included blogging, email, and Facebook. Some of the conversations involved people who trusted and professionally respected each other, though they had never met. Some of the conversations involved the professor and a student. Informal learning led to formal learning.

The most compelling observation was:

iv) I didn't feel like a student or a teacher at any stage, it was a peer dialogue, through which learning occurred.

Martin describes this example as trivial. It is not trivial. Through conversations that included respect, each person guided another to look further, to learn something new, and to dig a little deeper. In my opinion, that is not trivial. Although the learning is and will not be traditionally or structurally measured, this process of learning is important.

Note: Beth Kanter for providing Martin's link on Idealware: Blogging Online Webinar: July 24.