And now back to our regularly scheduled program…
blogging, higher ed. August 21st, 2008
Haven’t been writing/posting here much. Had to prioritize putting together my tenure portfolio. Having rid my shoulders of that weight (literally and figuratively), I look forward to writing more here. For now, I thought I’d let you know what I wrote about my blog in my tenure narrative. First, I began my section on “scholarship” with the following quote from Dewey’s Logic: The Theory of Inquiry:
In scientific inquiry, every conclusion reached, whether of fact or conception, is held subject to determination by its fate in further inquires…The conditional status of scientific conclusions (conditional in the sense of subjection to revision in further inquiry) is sometimes used by critics to disparage scientific “truths” in comparison with those which are alleged to be eternal and immutable. In fact, it is a necessary condition of continuous advance in apprehension and in understanding.
Then, in making the claim that a blog can be a form of scholarship, I wrote:
Since January 2008, I have explored a new mode of publishing. As a blogger at Educational Insanity (http://edinsanity.com), I have come to firmly believe that I am engaging in a relevant and important form of scholarship. Consistent with Dewey’s theory of inquiry and my beliefs about scholarship, I use my blog as a space to make knowledge claims; assertions that are conditional on their fate by further inquiries. Those inquiries come from peers, most of whom are educators in one form or another. In other words, blogging affords a pure form of peer review. The “blogosphere,” and especially the “edublogosphere,” is wonderfully rigorous and relentless in its review process; knowledge claims without sufficient warrants are regularly challenged. Blogging, for me, is very much a scholarly endeavor and satisfies me as a public intellectual.
Tags: blogging, Dewey, scholarship, tenure
I will be interested to see what they say about the blogging in the tenure review, especially given your defense of it. I hope they give it at least some value as a publication instead of just value as service.
It would actually be an interesting and valuable study. I know it won’t help you much, but a peer-reviewed article on a study of the increasing value of blogging in tenure review would really go a long way to help us edubloggers that happen to be professors. If there was only like 29 hours in the day instead, eh?
Glad to see you back! People ARE reading this, you know! I am readying myself for the school year and have been wondering how to approach some technology issues. One, I would love to have a Facebook group for my leadership students for discussion/planning (Blackboard is SO BAD) but I don’t want to see their profiles, even though I wouldn’t care if they saw mine.(These are seniors in high school.) Also, I would love to have my own student leadership blog where the same planning/discussion would take place, but I think there is no policy on this. Would a NING group be better suited? I have no experience on that. What to do? I’m a woman with big dreams and no guiding policy!
@Justin - I gave the blog a whole paragraph out of 40 pages in the narrative, so I don’t even know if anyone will comment on it. I wasn’t going to be too radical about it. We’ll see, though. I know my dept. chair buys my argument, so I have that going for me.
@Betsy - rock on! I worry that you’ll hit some opposition. My experiences in Hanover have been that just about everything is blocked. I’d check with your district tech. folks. But, I would go to them with a definite plan. I’ve been tinkering with some of the same issues you are; how to add an electronic community as a supplement to a f-2-f community. I’ve reached the same conclusion as you about Blackboard; it sucks. Ning is pretty good, but I’m not loving it. Lately, I’ve been leaning toward Wetpaint. It’s basically a wiki system, but it has a really nice discussion forum system built into it. And, for educators, Wetpaint will remove the ads if you ask. I’d be MORE than happy to discuss this further with you. If you’re interested, send me an e-mail and we can either chat by phone or sit down f-2-f to discuss.