Star gazing

Seems like I've been reading lots of reflective posts lately on blogging practices, what "counts" as blogging, how blogging differs from participating in listservs, etc. As a still-new blogger, my understanding of what blogging is and what bloggers do--especially in school contexts--is very much evolving. So I'm fascinated by meta-blogging stuff.

Makes me think of a conference I participated in last month. It was a regional, interdisciplinary conference for 2-year college faculty and administrators. One of the best-attended sessions was one on "blogs in educational settings." Four panelists--all from different departments within the same school--shared their reflections on using blogs in their classes. At one point, one of the panelists talked about the difference between blogs and discussion boards. The main difference, as he saw it, was this: on discussion boards (like those in WebCT or Blackboard), all posts by an individual student carry equal "weight." But with a blog, one post--the most recent--gets to be the "star." It's the one that readers see first, the one that the blogger positions as most relevant, timely, special (for the moment).

Though I can think of quite a few other--and, to me, more important--differences between discussion boards and blogs (e.g., the self re-presentation afforded by a blog--through photos, design choices, etc.--is way more sophisticated than that afforded by a discussion-board post), the speaker's use of the "star" metaphor struck me. Not so much in terms of individual posts, but in terms of my own experience of reading/writing blogs in general.

I've been thinking for a while about how blogging does/does not perpetuate a kind of narcissistic self-focus. I'm not talking here about accusations that blogging is just so much navel-gazing. I'm thinking more about how having a blog--putting my very own blog out there--sometimes feels, I don't know, presumptuous or arrogant on my part. (This is probably just my own issue; when you're raised in a family of eleven, you tend to get the message that you're not the only damn person in the world and that highlighting your SELF ain't a good thing.)

And then, when I get comments on my blog, I feel even more presumptuous/arrogant/self-focused. Because I'm glad to get those comments! Glad in a Sally-Fields-gasp!-you-actually-like-me sort of way. It's like I'm the star--I get to be the star--of this little tiny portion of cyberspace. Wow.

And I see this with my students too. Some of them--not all, but some--say that blogging is kind of a rush for them; they keep blogging because they want the comments because the comments make them feel special.

There's that star thing (i.e., something special that gets attention) again. Self-focus.

But.

Here's the cool thing: the more I get into blogs (and this is gonna sound hokey), the more I understand that it's okay that I get to be the star because everybody gets to be the star. I get to be the star over here for a little while. But then I get to help B* be the bright star that she is over at her place (by commenting, linking, etc.). And help Heather be the star over at hers. We're all part of a big connect-the-dots constellation.

Okay, what I'm saying here is certainly nothing profound for people who've been into blogging for a while (and, hey, it's probably even overly simplistic). But there's just something cool to me about the whole reciprocal, collaborative, but still very much individual thing that is blogging.