Writing - the core of educational blogging

When I read the article on "Educational Blogging", this interests me:



"No matter how much we want to spout off about the wonders of audience and readership, students who are asked to blog are blogging for an audience of one, the teacher." When the semester ends, "students drop blogging like wet cement."



I think this holds true if blogging is imposed as one of the criteria of evaluation of a course. The student will feel that they are forced to come out with some form of opinion about a theme that the instructor puts out because the student really needs the marks to help make the grade. Unless of course the student is really passionate about the subject and also really likes to express himself/herself in writing, then the true objective of educational blogging is met. Otherwise, if the student finds it a chore to write, then it's highly likely that the student will just drop blogging once the course is over and done with.

In the context of Malaysian students, many of them find it a chore to write, especially if the writing is academic in nature. Why? Simply because writing (for academic purpose) is a thinking process. Not only do they have to think about what to write, but also how to write, how to structure the sentences, are the writings sufficiently grammatical, are there enough points to earn the best possible marks, etc. And sadly also, students nowadays don't like to think. They prefer to merely be spoon-fed, or in other words, they see the lecturer as the giver, and they the receiver.