I've been reading your posts on blogging and other issues with interest.

Hillary's reflections on her actual and planned use of blogs in the classroom highlights some of the concerns that were also highlighted in the article on Educational Blogging: The fact that blogging often takes place in a kind of uncontrolled environment whereas schools and teachers are expected to provide students with a controlled environment in which they are protected. Also, she raises the question of the "authenticity" of assigning students to write blog posts, and to focus on particular assignments. At the same time, I think that it is a great idea to use blogs as a part of a literature circle: as you say, Hilary, it may provide at least a few students with the chance to be "inspired and to start a 'real blog.'"

Also, the point made in the article that not everyone is a blogger is an important one, and one that Hilary also mentioned. In the article on Educational Blogging, we read:

In particular, if you feel no empathy, no twinge of recognition, on reading Pilgrim's words [on writing compusively], then writing a weblog is probably not for you. This does not mean that you are not a part of the weblog world. It merely means that you participate in a different way.

What happens if that is the case? What happens if, as one blogger quoted in the article puts it, I commit "the ultimate blogging sin of losing interest in myself" (at least as far as blogging about myself goes)?

I look forward to reading your own individual thoughts on blogging on your own blogs!