It's all about getting published

While teachers--English teachers in particular--have long looked for ways in which to motivate students to improve their writing by identifying a "real audience" (i.e., an audience different from--and larger than--the teacher and classmates), they now have to look no further than their computers. Blogging provides an immediate and easy way to expand a writer's readership and to provide an extra incentive to write well.

In addition to the obvious social constructivism benefits that blogging in the classroom provides, blogs' biggest value for writing teachers might have less to do with the web 2.0-specific capabilities inherent in the technology and more to do with the fact that it makes it easy for students to "get published." Publication can occur literally with the click of a mouse.

Though Shiang-Kwei Wang and Hui-Yin Hsua, in their article "Reflections on Using Blogs to Expand In-class Discussions," focus on reporting out on the potential of blogs to create a more robust classroom discussion and learning environment, they also note the benefits of blogging as a means to providing writers a new audience: "Blogs enable users...to share...with people who are outside the [school] community." With the thought lingering in the backs of their minds that a wider audience--even if it is mostly just mom and dad, grandma and grandpa--is reading their work, nearly all writers respond with a better effort, a greater willingness to carry out multiple edits on a single piece of writing, and a greater sense of satisfaction when having composed a quality piece of writing. No longer is it only praise from the English teacher that students receive; praise now comes from--potentially--any computer on the planet with an internet connection. Wang and Hsua go on to note: "Knowing that their writing is available to the public, students might have stronger motivation to write well so that the quality of their writing
might shine."

And I think of all those hours all those years that I've stuffed manila envelopes with student writing to mail out to writing competitions just for the purpose of providing students with a chance to get published.... Hello blogs, goodbye paper cuts!