Updated sightly on 7 April 2026
Academic blogging has been an essential part of my ed techie / Instructional designer life since 2005. I’d like to suggest that academic blogging is a useful “bottoms up” strategy for creating digital footprints, for remaining accountable for your thoughts. In the neo liberal-university, where ” learning is only understood in economistic terms.” A scholar is often positioned as a “Brand”, that managers are looking to monetize. Education technology is the route by which this value is extracted and academic publishing is the mechanism by which this “brand” remains visible in the institution.
I think that’s a mistake. If you really want to encourage critical thinking, then this thought should not only be done within the academy. But be done openly. Higher education institutions should encourage their early career researchers, to own a domain of their own, develop their own identity and find their voice.
Start collecting and articulating your own ideas. Be bold and share them. Either in vernacular language to sustain and grow thought. (see Mthuli’s blog https://www.mthulibuthelezi.com/ ) Or in a dominant language, (like English) to develop social capital. Perhaps you might want a multi user blog, like FolioFriday. I want to know….
Who are you, dear blog reader? I am trying to “picture” you. Although this digital medium allows for greater interactivity than print. Can I visit your own blog? Read your bio on your institutional webpage, watch your YouTube videos. Follow you on LinkedIn, Twitter / X, Mastodon, TikTok or Instagram. Or are you only on ORCID, with a nod to ResearchGate.
Should you permit the intrusion, I might respond to your research with my comments, ingesting what I read, synthesising what you’ve said in my blog and adding my subjective experience. There is so much that I don’t know about you and until I set about collaborating on something specific with you, dear blog reader, that allows our minds to meet, it’s going to be my untested set of assumptions about you that guides my writing.
I don’t know who you are, dear blog reader. And despite what I’ve written. Neither do you know me. Are we only going to know each other when we are in the same room that we open our respective experiences, thoughts and reflections to each other? But perhaps we can we begin to know each other beforehand and understand our differences and shared interests after reading each other’s blogs? Each located on our own domains? Where we can build an accountable identity.
Yes, there are both benefits and challenges of blogging. When’s the best time to plant a tree? Yesterday. When’s the next best time to plant a tree? Today. When’s the best time to begin enjoying the benefits of blogging? Want to learn more. Sign up to my newsletter?
References
Beetham, H. (2024) Turing’s unreliable test
Scoles, J. (2025) The unexpected benefits of academic blogging
Scoles, J., Christie, H. Morris, N. Howie, K. (2024) Conversations, community and collegiality: Exploring the effect of blogging on teaching and learning practice