danah, this morning, during our workshop in social software in academia, brought up blogs as a tool for PhD students. This is quite a new thing (though, given the quantity and average age of livejournallers and the like, it will be much more common and established 10 years from now). Many aspects to think about:
- Blogs as a record and outboard-brain. This is what really draws me to it. I already keep reading notes and class notes on my own, why not put them up on the web, where I can access them from anywhere–and, as an emergent bonus, to get commentary on my own commentary.
- This makes the private public. Good if an informed public can add to your work in an on-subject manner. Bad if a half-informed public adds a lot of noise. Scary if your qual panel is informed about all the dirty little weaknesses to your theories.
- Good because it can force you to present things more coherently, and therefore think about things more thoroughly–no taking shortcuts when you’re not the only one reading what you’ve written
- Need to develop a different voice for doing this (honest but politic), especially in analysis rather than just summary.
- To be continued…
From now on, it goes down under this link.