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CONNECTED Bloggers report both personal, professional benefits By Michelle Harmon
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Immediacy Frequency Personal contact with audience Professional connections Personal growth Increased visibility Supplements other media
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CJE, has been a journalism educator for 10 years. Before that, she lived in New York City working at various corporate jobs where the skills she used to earn her B.A. in journalism at The Ohio State University supported her travels. Harmon graduated from OSU on a full-ride academic scholarship based on her work as an editor in chief in high school. While at OSU, she was competitively selected for a 10-month, all-expenses-paid internship in Tokyo as a reporter and page layout trainer at The Pacific Stars and Stripes. The Idaho State Journalism Association awarded Harmon Journalism Teacher of the Year at its 2013 state conference, and The Borah Senator student publication won Best of Show. Harmon is a member of the Journalism Education Association Digital Media Committee; she presented her first national session and took her MJE test at the JEA/NSPA conference in Boston. She can be reached at borahmrs. hnews@gmail.com or @mrharmon on twitter
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Michelle Harmon,
BLOGGING BENEFITS
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Update illustration by Ed Courrier
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ne successful marriage proposal is among the boasts on the Internet about millions of bloggers. If scholastic journalism is any indication, coupling publication students with blogging is also a perfect match. Traditional print, broadcast and yearbook writers at the recent November Journalism Education Association/National Scholastic Press Association Convention in Boston reported the personal benefits of their blogs: better grades, scholarship offers, writing practice, personal and organizational recognition, career and college readiness. Of the estimated 31 million bloggers in the United States, several discuss their student blogs here.