Blogging... The new homework?

http://keloland.com/NewsDetail6162.cfm?Id=0,73661

When we were assigned a blog for 25% of our grade I was skeptical about how it could be considered a 'graded assignment'. It almost seemed too easy to be considered a college course.
It obviously isn't just an insane idea to make our lives easier since all college students need a computer today to even consider getting through a college degree. Evidently high schools are picking up the idea. A little guarded and fully edited. Not a true blog by any means, however accepted as an assignment. Is this the next form of homework? Are writing papers a thing of the past? How will this affect the ‘alliteracy’ of the M-generation? Yes, alliteracy, it is defined as having the ability to read, but choosing not to, a linguists nightmare. I believe it will affect it greatly.

Our generation already has no clue how to speak or write due to an increase in the technologies we’re provided. More English papers are written in texting and IMing formats. They don’t know how to write complete sentences, they don’t understand the meanings of words in the texts they are expected to read, they live on Wikipedia. According to Dr. John Taylor Wikipedia is the fast and dirty way to get anything wrong. So back to my original question, is blogging to next form of doing homework? I really hope not.

Numbers for reading and writing are on a steady decline and they are only expected to get worse as we move further into the digital age. When we text or IM we can think over our response and re-type it multiple times until it is how we want it to sound, this is an issue for spoken conversations. Some don’t care what they say, how they spell it, what the words really mean. They type anything and hope that with enough bells and whistles the teacher accepts what they’ve written. Is that the path we should continue to encourage?

I’m not saying blogging is a bad idea for students to put their ideas into writing, but standards need to be set and kept if this will work. Nor should other forms of homework diminish. Grammar and spelling should stay staples and be stressed more than they currently are in public high schools, papers should still be written and graded and many texts should be assigned to be read for a broader appreciation for what technological advancements have brought us. Where would we be without that original printing press? Would anyone have the ability to read besides the ordained and scribes without it?

We are a now society, we take for granted the things that make our lives easiest and forget the important parts of our cultures and histories that have brought us to today. We live in the media generation, but we should be enjoying every kind of media, especially the text found in good old fashioned books. Like the old saying goes, “If want to end a society or culture, burn their libraries,” too bad Americans have less and less respect for those accommodations that our ancestors worked so hard to create.