A Blog Post about Blog Posts

As I sit to write this there are a few things I find to be ironic.

1-I'm writing a blog post about research about blog posts.

2-I started my last post with an "I don't know much preface."

3-I just read an article on perfectionism which pretty much summed up my thoughts on blogging.  

So...I hate blogging...but I also kind of love blogging.  I have a blog...and once upon a time I wrote in it.  That's the thing blogging is writing.  And I hate writing...but I also kind of love writing.   The thing is that I only like writing when I'm done writing.  But it takes me way to long to actually write things.  Even a simple blog post.  I said I'd blog about my marathon...but I never did.  I said I'd blog about my trip to Haiti...but I've only gotten through the morning of day 2.  Because I am the slowest writer in the world.  (Also I like hyperboles and I'm kind of busy.)  I think the problem is that I'm the kind of person who likes to edit...and doesn't know when to stop editing or how to hold off on editing until I've actually written enough to edit.  I hit the backspace key a lot.  I just did.  This is the third time I've started this sentence.  True story. 

I found this research to be interesting, because this is something I wonder about with teaching.  I've been doing this whole higher ed thing for long enough to have done A LOT of blogs, wikis, and discussion boards... And I'm not the biggest fan--for the same reasons mentioned in the articles.  I'm not quite the quiet ballerina I was when I started out on this academic adventure, but I'm still not a huge fan of this whole "public display" thing.  The articles sort of helped me think through why and also think about how this is important to know in my own teaching.  

When I ask students to do blogs or discussion boards, what do I need to be aware of?  How might that interaction differ (or not differ as the case may be) from in class encounters or written responses that are not public?  

Note--One way to write a blog post quickly without over-editing is to forget your computer charger and work and be mid-post when the battery warning tells you that you're running out of time.  Whoops. Ha!