Thinking horizontally and vertically

I’m reading Will Richardson’s book Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms which my colleague Kevin brought back from the National Writing Project’s Tech Matters Summer Institute. And, it’s compelling me to writing down the thinking I’ve been doing as I wade through my own personal learning process as a blogger.

When I first heard about blogging, I thought it was simply a tool to allow people to journal online. I had no interest in sharing my own journal writing with a public audience. After all, isn’t that what makes journaling its own specific genre? It is writing for yourself. My next understanding of blogging came when I began to see that a blog could be used as a website that allowed for easier editing and updating. That, however, seems to be a use of the format of “a blog” which is quite different than the actual act of “blogging.”

But, now that I’ve been reading educators’ blogs and blogging myself, I am realizing the full potential of this new form of writing genre. Blogging offers the opportunity to engage in shared inquiry and learning. I realize that I am constantly thinking of my audience and purpose as I blog.

• Is there something for me to learn as I put my words out there?
• Does it invite others to enter into this learning process with me?

However, it is more than just the content that I put out there. The form is essential. I am constantly asking myself:

• How can I write this so that it connects with the people who can most inform my own thinking and learning?
• How can I write this so that it brings me to new spaces for this thinking and learning?

And not just new spaces—as in new understandings—but new physical spaces, as in other people’s blogs, research, articles, websites that can further inform my thinking and learning. Hyperlinking to these spaces and attracting them to me (through tagging and rss feeds—which I’m still trying to completely figure out) seem to be essential qualities of this genre. In fact, Will addresses this in his book when he explains,

“Throughout this process, bloggers are constantly making editorial decisions, and these decisions are more complex than those made when writing for limited audience. Because students are regularly selecting content to include or link to, they learn to find and identify accurate and trustworthy sources of information” (31).

The exciting thing for me is that blogging constantly engages my mind in both horizontal and vertical thinking at the same time! Ah! If only my teachers had introduced me to blogging (okay it didn’t even exist back then) then we all would have been a lot less frustrated throughout my more formal education years. My mind naturally works simultaneously in both these directions. I’m not claiming to have absolute control over this process; in fact, it can be quite frustrating for others to work with me—whether it is in a strategic thinking meeting or collaborative writing process. Orally, it can be quite a challenge to follow my thinking pattern—even for me.

Here’s my theory: Blogging could potentially help train my brain. This genre of writing could help me gain more control over organizing my thinking. Ah, but you say, any new process takes practice. And I’ll be the first to admit—okay it is quite public—how little I’ve been actually blogging since I began this practice. However, what I’ve discovered is that since I’ve started blogging, my mind is constantly thinking in this genre. In other words, my mind seems to more often slip into reflective thinking with a public audience in mind in a hypertext format. Even when I’m not blogging, I’m blogging. This is not that different from what I used to tell my students who claim to be able to sit down and write a final draft in one sitting—you’re writing even when you’re not writing: in the shower, while your driving, on that morning run.

What blogging has also helped me do is to take more chances. I am more willing to put my thinking out there when I’m orally engaging with others—thinking that is in raw form, ideas I’m still trying to understand, theories that are still just sparks. Why? Because I realize that by putting them out there, I’m inviting others to comment, to question, to connect their thinking and experience with mine and therefore take my thinking further or perhaps even into new realms I couldn’t have entered on my own. So question my thinking. Challenge my ideas. Let’s get learning!

For more from Will Richardson’s thinking, read this interview at Steve’s blog.