cognitive blogging
I realized the other day that much of my blogging has been about my emotional and physical states — something that is really a sign for me that I am exhausted and not thinking and learning and connection the way I really like to. This was particularly true earlier in the week, when I was trying to make to to sessions and schlepping up and downtown. I guess I am no longer a city dweller.
But after a delicious and soul refreshing night of sleep last night, I am back at the Hechinger Institute for early career scholars interested in learning more about how to write about educational research for a wider audience — exactly what I have in mind. (I have this dream of writing a book some thing like The Tipping Point that is extremely accessible and interesting to tons of people). So being one of the people who got into this thing has been very cool.
Just a moment ago, we listened to a panel with three of my favorite authors/journalists in the area — Sam Dillon, a two-time Pulitzer winner; Beth Fertig — the best education reporter on NPR; and John Mooney, a strong educ writer at the NJ Star Ledger.
And to top it all off, John Willinsky is now talking about making your work open and available directly to the public, past even the journalists — an idea I love and have been trying to access and do myself more often (of course there are so many copyright issues — but Peter Lang publishers, for example, are releasing new books as PDFs for distribution before the paper copies come out). This is the new world of information access, storage, archiving, you name it.
Plus I first read John Willinsky in my first semester of my doctoral program and was completely hooked on his ideas — eight long years ago..
March 30th, 2008 at 2:34 am
I’ve been thinking about this issue in regards to my own blog and other blogs that I read. I am wondering if the pressure you’ve put on yourself to post a certain number of times a week is contributing to some of the less “cognitive” posts. I agree with you that we need to write frequently, but if we do so we have to admit and accept that most of that will be dreck. The good stuff will emerge.
Or we can take the stance that we only post when we really have something worthwhile to say. I’ve noticed that some blogs that are consistently good do not have a high frequency of postings.
It’s an authorial decision that needs to be based on what our purposes are for the blog as well as our psycho-social needs.
In other words, don’t expect yourself to be brilliant all the time.
By the way - my Friday presentation sucked. Hope yours went ok.
April 1st, 2008 at 7:40 pm
I was just the discussant but I walked by and saw you presenting. It sounded good to me — I can honestly say I’ve never seen you do anything that sucked. And I know how high your standards are. : )
April 4th, 2008 at 3:39 am
ok 1) gloria’s friday paper was awesome! and b) im a big willinsky fan, too - how excellent that you got to hear him speak! and c) what *is* a cognitive post? as in, *not* emotional or physical? your query has got me curious…
April 7th, 2008 at 6:09 pm
I guess I was thinking about thinking more, and expressing deeper thought in my posting. But you’re right, there’s no such thing as a cognitive post solely. Everything I write brings in multiple areas of my life — to think they could ever be that cleanly categorized is nuts.