Wednesday, January 16, 2008

Blogging and school: incompatible activities?

1) Because of time, or the utter lack thereof...

2) Because students find their way to the blog, and the classroom persona that one has carefully constructed is compromised, or at least complicated...

3) Because it feels redundant to post, repeatedly, as I undoubtedly will, that I'm drowning in work and motherhood, and sleeping 4-5 hours a night, and I haven't even got my first batch of papers yet...

Okay, seasoned academibloggers. Now is the time to share your wisdom. How do you negotiate these challenges?

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On a different subject: So for many years I was involved, in one way or another, with the music industry, or rather with the industry that talks about the music industry. I miss having a print / airwave soapbox for my incessant musical meditations. So I've decided that I'm going to add brief summaries to this blog's "Heavy Rotations" section (bottom right), not because you want it, but because I have to say it to someone or other, and my kids are sick of hearing it.

3 comments:

Flavia said...

In re: items 1 and 3: eh, the blogging it waxes and it wanes. I've felt more pressure as my readership has grown to blog somewhat consistently, but I still sometimes disappear for a week and plenty of people *regularly* disappear for a week or longer. No sense in posting when you don't feel inspired.

Of course, sometimes one *does* feel at least somewhat inspired, and just doesn't have the time. For me it's not uncommon to write posts or just throw some rough ideas up when the mood strikes, keep those things around in draft mode for a while, and then publish/finish them up/delete them later. Sometimes my posts are things I've written days and even weeks earlier and either deliberately kept in reserve for a dry spell or for some reason just not felt right about publishing sooner.

Relatedly, post on whatever you damn well please--you create your own readership. So if you want to summarize or rhapsodize about the music you're listing to, why not make those things proper posts?

As for item #2. . . I have no answers. I don't know what I would do if my students found my blog, but I know it would involve freaking the f*ck out.

squadratomagico said...

What Flavia said: write when you have something to write about, disappear when you can't find the time or energy. Lately, I've been in a bloggy mood, but I certainly go through periods where I disappear for a bit. Her advice to hold some posts in reserve is a good idea too -- I try to do that, but always end up posting things pretty quickly. Impatience is my curse.

Lisa B. said...

Good advice from the two above. I like blogging, so I do it. Short posts about stuff you noticed/found are good, or "I'm thinking about this" posts, or whatever.

I wouldn't worry about students finding the blog. Or, at least, I haven't. It seems of little consequence, really. So they find out I'm emotionally unhinged or a shopper or a rabid moviegoer or lazy. Something tells me that the attentive ones have already noticed. Maybe I *will* start worrying about this, though. Switch from worrying about other things. It's good to change things up a little.