Exploiting the Distinctiveness of Blogs to Overcome Geographic Isolation

Abstract

This paper explores the distinctiveness of the blog as a new kind of text and the capacity for blogs to connect and engage students in distinctively different ways. Web 2.0 provides many opportunities to connect otherwise geographically isolated people. Further, Web 2.0 texts, such as blogs, cultivate new techno-social communicative practices. To take advantage of blogs in rural educational settings, an understanding of the affordances of these new texts must inform English curriculum development and teaching. The paper discusses the ways in which blogs differ from other texts, and how opportunities for co-authorship may be used to overcome geographical isolation for students.