Who needs journal articles?

Scott McLeod presented some interesting analysis today in his blog. He points out that blogs have the potential to reach much larger audiences than academic journals. For example, his blog could potentially attract 4,200,000 people per decade; whereas, articles written by the same author in academic journals may only draw 166,667 people per decade. By the end of his post, McLeod poses the following question:

Why would anyone who wishes to actually reach educators and hopefully influence change in schools not be blogging?

Well, I simply agree. Blogs have the potential to reach wider audiences, but only if their authors take them seriously. According to StatCounter, I only attract about 15 unique users a week, but if I advertised my blog in local education newsletters or encouraged my colleagues to provide material for the blog, then maybe I could create a larger readership. Blogs serve as a medium of communication that links many people, and if we could create a virtual arena for discussions to take place, perhaps more educational endeavors could be begun. Perhaps, more ideas of reform could be discussed. The possibilities are endless.

I will end with McLeod's final question:

Why haven't more faculty caught on to this?

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Image Citation:

Automania. (2006 February 10). Spider web gravity well. Automania's photostream. Retrieved January 16, 2007, from http://www.flickr.com/photos/automania/97936640/