How blogging can give students a voice

Guest post by Connor Wood

Author’s note: Lisa Nielsen offered me the chance to do this guest post after I requested an interview from her for my blog Trismegistus Nab-tu-we. My blog is devoted to writing, politics, and philosophy of education. She was impressed with my blog and asked me if I would share information about my work. This post provides a student’s story about how I’ve used a blog and my personal learning network to share my ideas and give students a voice.

I run a blog called Trismegistus Nab-tu-we. I originally started the blog as a project for my high school English class. Unlike my classmates, who quit after the three posts required by my teacher, I kept going a while, trying to turn it into another type of blog. I talked about books, languages, liberal arts, programming, and internet culture. Then I got into politics, and occasionally, I still digress into copyright law and freedom of speech.I covered a whole mess of things. But it was not regular. I realized from my pageviews that without consistency and focus my blog did not seem to be worth anybody’s time.

Five months into my little foray into the blogging, I wrote a post on Standards. While I did not have any uniform agenda, it was a start. I cannot say that I agreed with everything I wrote then. My ideas were a product of the times, with the end of school, and a new superintendent looming, I just went where my mind was. Then, I let it rest.

Until summer came around.

Summer is a weird time. Students take this three month break from school. I did all sorts of things...and I still got bored. So I set out with a list of goals. I knew I would not complete all of them but they lead me to accomplish what I wanted them to. Along with my main goal of trying to start a writing career, they set me up to be more social and less afraid to approach people. I also became involved in the online community around me. I started commenting on Simply Unbound and Random Musings. Interestingly, just about everything I am doing now is a product of last summer’s boredom.

I want more »