Is Academia Eating Its Young? is a great post, even leaving aside the title and the great image.
Particularly as an inveterate blogger, and having had to deal with some of the colleagues who don’t understand the medium, I was engaged by this:
The fate of bloggers has been a matter of some interest in the academic blogosphere. Not bloggers in general, but graduate students and junior faculty. The concern is not just that no professional credit accrues for blogging, but that blogging may actually hurt one’s career. It is a fact that many (older) faculty are, at best, ignorant of and indifferent to, online activity of all sorts, including blogging. Some – many? – are actively hostile to it.
I don’t understand the hostility, but I do know it’s there. It’s an interesting question. What should blogging be in academia? If I can use my blog to give information, help someone else’s class, or encourage the work we are all doing, isn’t that an advantage to my blog? I do all of those things with the blog.
I also answer the questions of your students, who don’t know what to do with a character analysis, and help you in graduate school with a discussion of informal assessments.
It’s part of being a teacher. We keep teaching no matter where we are. I can be a virtual teacher using my blog. I like that.