It’s certainly an open question. As you point out, there are definite benefits to blogging for academics. Unfortunately, those who make career decisions for you (tenure committees, job search committees) may not really understand those benefits at the current time. It’s going to be really interesting following the careers of the current crop of science bloggers. There are a bunch of grad students and postdocs in the mix. We’ll have to see how things go for them, if their blogs propel them up the ladder faster.
It’s certainly an open question. As you point out, there are definite benefits to blogging for academics. Unfortunately, those who make career decisions for you (tenure committees, job search committees) may not really understand those benefits at the current time. It’s going to be really interesting following the careers of the current crop of science bloggers. There are a bunch of grad students and postdocs in the mix. We’ll have to see how things go for them, if their blogs propel them up the ladder faster.
I believe blogging is important for academics as a way of understanding what their students are doing – reading and writing. In http://lisaneal.wordpress.com/2008/03/04/using-a-blog-to-aid-reflection-or-would-thomas-jefferson-write-a-blog/ I talk about a paper in eLearn Magazine (http://elearnmag.org/subpage.cfm?section=best_practices&article=44-1) that specifically addresses how blogging was used in a graduate course. But you really need to try it to understand it before unleashing it on your students!