Blogging or Journaling - Are they the same?

Blogs are often described as online journals. But are they really just an online version of the traditional pen-and-paper diaries we keep around the house?


Photo courtesy infed.org

On one level, blogs and journals are very similar - both enable anyone to become an author about any topic they can think up. From an educational perspective, both can be used for students to reflect on what they are learning and to make these reflections more concrete by putting them in writing. Blogs and journals also encourage students to write, and thus provide a good avenue to practice their writing skills.

On another level however, blogs enable so much more than just writing, because of the online and public nature of the tool itself. Blogs enable writers to share their thoughts with the entire world, a community of selected bloggers, or just themselves. If shared with others, readers can also write back - contributing to the knowledge already presented, or responding with their own thoughts and experiences.

So how can educators utilize these different, but similar tools of blogging and journaling? Please share your thoughts and experiences of using blogs or journals in the classroom - how did you use the tool, and what were the results?

Want to learn more about journaling? Check out Mark Smith's (2006) article on Keeping a learning journal, where he details the whys and hows of using a journal for active personal learning.