Making my way through blog lit

While wandering, reading, and reflecting on blogging am working to ground myself in what is known about blogs. Worked my way this evening through the PEW’s (2006) Bloggers: A portrait of the internet's new storytellers and some eye-opening statistics. Some of the blogging statistics I found of interest in the survey (n=7, 012) included

1.Majority of bloggers are well educated, 37% of the respondents had college degrees compared with the 27% of the Americans with college degrees
2. Well over a third, 38% of bloggers are American knowledge based professionals compared with 13% of the American knowledge based professionals in the workplace
3.Bloggers are overwhelming young, 84% of the respondents were under 50
4.Rather even in gender, 54% of bloggers Male and 46% are female
5.57 million people read blogs and 12 million keep them
6.Older bloggers are a minority, only 16% of respondents over 50 blog
7.51% of bloggers have less than a year’s experience

Could the lack of women bloggers on topics such as; education technology, higher education, and leadership be linked to numbers of women with college degrees and considered knowledge based professional in the workplace? Maybe there just are not that many of us to begin with, let alone enough of us in numbers to make a dent on the Technorati’s biggest blogs in the blogosphere.

More pondering on women bloggers

So, here I was thinking I had noticed something about blogging that others hadn't and decided to start looking around to find out why there weren't more women bloggers. Since beginning my search around the blogspere and my first baby steps at blogging have found that I am not the only person wondering why there aren't more women doing this. AND, of course have found out that I am about two years or more behind other folks who have pondered on the same. Steve Levy, blogged about this on MSNBC, Chris Nolan asked the question and then listed 10 reasons why she thinks women don't blog. She also listed some reasons why she believes women are behind the curve on all this. Nolan's #1 on the list is that more men are techies and her #2 is that "men prefer to link to and to read men like them".

I like to read and will link to others writing about education technology, higher education, and leadership. Although, I'll look for both men and women have expertise in these areas and are articulate, but mostly will look for women bloggers who have the same interests. I suspect that as a woman I too will prefer to link to and read women like me.

Where are the women bloggers?

This is a question I asked myself and men bloggers I knew a few months ago. Since then I learned that many women are blogging and on topics that I am interested in. Interestingly, a woman named Lisa Guernsey was wondering the same thing in Telling all online. It's a man's world (isn't it?),(March 2003). I had the same thought as Lisa when I started looking at the blogs in fall of 2006(Gee, am I behind the blog curve!)

As I poked around and read blogs in late 2006, I just wasn't finding the kinds of blogs on topics that I wanted to read written by women. So, I sent emails to the two Minnesota bloggers I knew, Barry Dahl and Al Essa and asked them to send me the names of women bloggers they tracked.

One of the names I got was Glenda Morgan a woman whose excellent research on course management systems informed my dissertation was blogging.It appears I am tracking Morgan again as I continue my research and look at best practice in education technology, higher education, and now blogging.

All of the bloggers above pointed me to other women bloggers and am finding others along the blogging trails, but more about that later.

Teachers blog to vent, to learn

Found this information about how K-12 educators are using blogs in a recent ASCD Newsletter. According the a Houston Chronicle news article,teachers across the nation are using their own blogs to vent frustrations and defend public education, but they walk a fine line with administrators when airing school business in public is concerned. Houston Chronicle (1/29)

My foray into blogging is all about learning right now, although I may do some venting later on. In reading this article and looking at the links it provided to educator blogs I was glad to see women bloggers listed. One of the things that got me started thinking about a blog of my own was that I was not finding many women who blog about education technology, higher education, and leadership.

Am finding more and more women bloggers on topics I am interested in as I look around and will use my blog to lead others to those I find.

A Starting Point

Portals consist of web pages that act as a starting points.

Also see Wikipedia on the many descriptions on the use of the term portal.