Edublog as Metaphor: An Introduction

“Metaphors matter–the metaphor we use to understand learning influences the language with which we talk about learning, teaching, and education” (Tucker, 2008, blog post).

I aim to explore the complex topic of edublogging with the aid of metaphor.
Why metaphors? Both edublogs and metaphors are about meaning making, creativity, and language play. Edublogs are very difficult to define without making a deeper connection and opening up of self to another’s voice, or vision. Both require us to delve deeper. Edublogs are much more than their technical definition; in fact, if pressed, each edublogger would give a different definition, draw on a different metaphor, to explain their unique purposes. Each edublogger captures a partial truth of the whole picture. Likewise, the investigation of metaphor captures pieces of the whole. Edublogging, like metaphor, is a use of language unleashing personal creativity, and metaphor involves creative play with ideas. Using metaphors to describe edublogging opens up possibilities, invites us to open up to other ideas, and see things from others’ perspectives. Metaphor has been defined as “giving the thing a name that belongs to something else.” Metaphor connects ideas together, bridges unrelated ideas that previously had no connection before, and this leads to a new viewpoint, and lends a deeper meaning to both. So too with edublogs, which open up a web of connections that did not previously exist. By exploring the concept of edublogs by way of metaphors, I open up a window of potentials.

I borrow from the words of Mark S. Burrows in his blog, in which he explains the profound function of metaphor as enabling us to imagine something that is not (yet) present, to announce the way the world might be. (Burrows, 2009, blog post)

References:

URL: http://www.ants.edu/blogs/faculty-blog/archives/2008_02_01_
Retrieved May 21, 2009

URL: http://christytucker.wordpress.com/2008/09/11/metaphors-and-language-of-le Retrieved May 21, 2009.