Can Blogs Be Conversational?

I had read Dianna Laurillard's book on Rethinking University Teaching and so I was interested in hearing her give a talk at the University. She was talking about the use of the Conversational Framework in developing teachers and students especially relating to technology. One thing she was not sure about was how lecturers could share good practice as this requires us to develop effective online communities.

I said about this blog and how this is part of the Centre for Bioscience. Her opinion is that Blogging is a productive technology and so this does not meet the conversational framework. Her point is that blogs are often written and rarely read, so there is not a two way flow between participants. I agree in some ways, after all how many peoples blogs in the HEA group have I read? You get the most satisfaction and see the best effect when you blog is read by someone else and when they comment on it. But I disagree in others. If you do not publish then your message and experience is only an internal one. It is never shared and this externalising of experience is the first step towards the conversational framework.

So I would be a bit more pragmatic and say that while it might be like the sound of one hand clapping sometimes someone else will join in and then it is worth it.