As part of this blogging assignment, I'm supposed to list three "professional" blogs somewhere on this site. And it got me thinking - what exactly is a professional blog?
We all know what a professional is: an expert in their field. Generally we equate degrees with professionals. But no one is getting a degree in blogging at this university, and on the Internet, anyone can claim to be an expert.
For instance, in Alan November's book "Web Literacy for Educators," he tells the story of the 14-year-old "lawyer" who gave free legal advice to anyone who e-mailed him to ask for it. Maybe this kid was really smart. Maybe he'd watched a lot of "Judge Judy" and picked up enough legal mumbo jumbo to navigate the court systems. He was even smart enough to make up a degree to give him seemingly legitimate credentials. Dozens of people fell for his joke.
Sure, we can investigate to see who owns a blog, but really, what degree gives you right to be "more of an expert" at something than anyone else? Some doctor graduated last in his class. Just because you're a teacher, that doesn't mean you're any good at teaching.
Blogs are also meant to be accessible to everyone, so that every person can publish his or her own voice. If you only listen to the professional blogger voices, aren't you sort of dishonoring the system?
I'm not saying listen to every post that every person creates. Certainly some ideas have more merit than others. I'm just saying, "professional" is a term that has no place in the blogging world.
The Hardest Time of the School Year
7 years ago
I know what you're saying, its hard to write a professional one and its hard to find them. I was trying to find some written by elementary school teachers but they are all still very personal, does that make them unprofessional? I think that with something like blogging there isn't a fine line there is one great big fuzzy space between professional and not.
ReplyDeleteI totally agree with this....blogs are places for people to put their own thoughts and opinions - and if these are biased, how is that professional? I find it hard to find blogs that are professional, because I've always known them to be for my own personal use.
ReplyDeleteI feel that blogs are for personal thoughts. Whether a blog is professional or not, anyone can create a blog. Here I sit, commenting on yours after I just created my own post. We are students, not professionals and anyone that has a computer and the internet can do just the same. Someone can sound professional, and like you said anyone is capable of getting a degree. Blogs are too impersonal for me to trust the information I find on one to use as credible evidence.
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