Using Blogs To Enhance Literacy

Adolescents spend nearly six hours a day online, with most of those hours focused on blogging. Whether they are writing on MySpace, Xanga, Bebo, LiveJournal, or some other site, these youngsters invest time and energy creating new or different social identities. Beyond the mainstream media hype about the dangers of adolescents and blogs, we find that these young people are developing 21st century literacies_especially in information and visual literacy. Using Blogs to Enhance Literacy examines this phenomenon and how it affects adolescents from offering easy avenues for bullying to bridging the digital divide. In this book, Diane Penrod addresses the social, developmental, and pedagogical issues surrounding the use of blogs and the implications that blogging has for current and future students.

Beyond the mainstream media hype about the dangers of adolescents and blogs, we find that young people are developing 21st century literacies_especially in information and visual literacy. In this book, Diane Penrod addresses the social, developmental, and pedagogical issues surrounding the use of blogs and the implications that blogging has for current and future students.

Diane Penrod is professor of writing arts at Rowan University in Glassboro NJ. She directs the masters program in writing and is the site director for the National Writing Project at Rowan. Dr. Penrod was named a 2000 Outstanding Young Scholar in Postmodern Theory by IBC London.