My guess is, you probably didn’t learn how to write as well as you do by writing blogs. Why do you expect this is the “perfect” tool for learning to write?  It requires a computer and an internet connection.  What about people all over the world who can’t even afford to buy a pencil?  I’ll bet an awful lot of them can write better than many of those better equipped.  It reminds me of someone like Steven Wolfram, who takes 20 years to write a book that basically says, if you don’t have a supercomputer, you can’t really do worthwhile science anymore.

Don’t take my word on how bad blogging is; check out the statistics on blogging.   It’s done mostly by guys, mostly software developers, mostly to further corporate revenues and advertising or political ends.   All the rest of the blogs aren’t even a drop in a very large bucket, including educators.

Once you have written something down, it is an unfortunate truth that whatever you have written is, from the moment you have written it, as dead as the paper and ink (or bits, or blogs, or other media) with or on which it was written.  Where blogs are concerned, that’s probably a good thing.

Now if you were pitching that students were becoming better photographers, graphic artists, musicians or composers, you might actually have an idea worth furthering (like Steve Jobs did), but that just doesn’t seem to be what most blogs are about.

Virtually every newspaper today is running on a blog platform which supports interactive commenting. I subscribe to hundreds of fantastic (and well-written) education blogs, and read many posts each day.
http://www.speedofcreativity.org/resources/education-blogs/

A ton of blogs include diverse opinions and many blog authors seek balance, not to simply share a single perspective.

I’d encourage you to reconsider your negative opinion of “blogs” in general. Criticizing blogs as a category of websites is a lot like criticizing a single type of writing instrument, like fountain pens or mechanical pencils. People can write wonderful as well as well as unremarkable things with all these tools.

I’m citing academic researchers like Stephen Krashen in encouraging students to do more reading to become both better readers and writers. It’s certainly good for people to read well-formed content, but it’s not true that people must read only ‘a certain kind’ of writing or literature to acquire literacy skills. I don’t advocate that students ONLY read blogs written by individuals, but blogs certainly can and should be PART of the repertoire of student reading materials.
http://www.sdkrashen.com/

Note my post here was why students should be WRITING blog posts. There is value in students both reading and writing blogs. In generally I think students need to be doing MUCH more writing inside and outside of classrooms, and blogs are ideal platforms for teachers to use to facilitate this process. They are also great for anyone outside of school who wants to communicate a message and reach an audience, especially for interactive conversations. This very post and comment thread is a case in point!

Wes, I have forwarded your blog to everyone I could think of, LOL. I learn so much from my PLN everyday!

In this case, I’m making the case for students to learn about hyperlinked writing in part because students learn more and specifically become more media literate as they shift in being prosumers of information rather than strictly passive consumers. It’s also critical to recognize the importance of hyperlinking with care. Things you link to represent you as well as the organizations of which you are a part. This includes your family, your school, clubs and other organizations, etc. Things you link to can become associated with you as part of your “personal brand.” Jeff Utech wrote a good post about personal branding recently which relates to this.

So I agree source citation is important, but I think the reasons for students blogging and learning about hyperlinked writing go beyond it.

Great bit—and I love the emphasis you place on using hyperlinks. For me, it has less to do with citing sources than it does with connective thinking. Being able to see the route that students took to get to their final positions on topics is beautiful.

It’s kind of like “showing your work” in math class. With hyperlinked writing, teachers can see the errors in logic or the misinformation that their students are wrestling with—-or can celebrate their ability to “mashup” content from different sources into new and original thought.

Of course, I’m no where near getting my middle schoolers to this point, but I can always dream, right?!

Bill