Losing the Value of Private Reflection Through Blogging?

They only babble who practice not reflection.
Edward Young

Self-Portrait in Spherical Mirror
by M.C. Escher

Written teacher reflections, particularly in pre-service teacher education, have been traditionally done in a rather isolated fashion.  The pre-service teacher may be the only person to read their reflection and oftentimes, the pre-service teacher may only have written the reflection as a result of being asked to do it as part of their course work.  Once out of college/university I would be skeptical about the amount of practising teachers that  regularly take the time to write out a serious reflection of their work.  My scepticism is based on the reality that many teachers can be physically drained after a busy school day, and the last thing they want to consider is doing something that may be seen as further increasing their workload and/or irrelevant to aiding their practice.  However, with blogging on the increase, I find my scepticism of reflection by practising teachers is somewhat diminishing, as blogging can support different forms of reflection in a more engaging and useful manner to teachers.  For further information on the value of blogging than just reflection see Seven reasons why teachers should blog by Steve Wheeler. 

Hatton and Smith (1995) outline four types of writing, three of which are useful for reflection in school-based practice:
1. Descriptive writing - involves the reporting of events and is not considered reflective,
2. Descriptive reflection - involves some reflection, but is more personal in nature with the focus on the individual,
3. Dialogic reflection - seeks a range of answers to difficulties and thus, can contain many questions, and
4. Critical writing - looks to provide more reason to the range of answers to difficulties noted, and in particular, encompasses the broader context, e.g., school structure, cultural issues, societal issues, etc. 

Blogging is at a minimum a useful reflective exercise, capable of including the above forms of writing.  It is also a means to share experiences, and in turn find out about other people's experiences.  At the other possible end blogging can be a very useful way to interact and debate with people of similar interests, that is if other people engage in discussion.  Blogging however, like teaching, is a two way street.  If other people are to interact with you, you should interact with them.  Most blog posts can go unnoticed and it can be difficult to always find the time to blog.  However, blogging could potentially offer more to teachers than isolated reflections, if teachers were willing to invest the time.  It is not that isolated reflections have no utility (they would be useful for issues of a sensitive nature), but more may be achieved through blogging.  Some of the questions I have are: Should private reflections remain as part of teacher education courses?  Should certain reflections be substituted with blogging?  Should private reflections remain in teacher education and the other advantages of blogging should be offset through other avenues?  Time will tell I suppose.

I'm a reflection of the community.

Tupac Shakur

Reference
Hatton, N. and Smith, D. (1995). Reflection in teacher education: Towards definition and implementation. Teaching and Teacher Education, 11(1), 33-49.

Image taken from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hand_with_Reflecting_Sphere