Blogging vs. Exams - Which is more effective for learning material?

In my opinion, I feel that blogging is a much more effective way to retain information than by tediously taking notes and memorizing them before an exam. In my 15 years as a student, I have witnessed students time and time again cram the night before a test only to remember the information for a brief time and then promptly forget everything they studied. I've done this too many times I can remember. The reason we do this is not because we are lazy and procrastinators (not entirely, anyway), it's because we are given five or more courses at a time (in high school I had a 10 course load per semester) each with it's own readings and course work. Not only are we expected to keep up with all this work at once, but often times expected to be able to pick out the most important information on our own. Instead of learning the information, it becomes about memorizing it.

The problem lies within our education system itself. It doesn't teach you to think creatively or objectively. It teaches you to sit in a chair, be docile, not question any of the information you are learning, and then regurgitate the information when its time for the test. It teaches memorization and conformity. Some could argue this is brainwashing.

Blogging offers much more opportunity than this. It allows a student to do some research for themselves on the topic, taking all different sources and possible answers into account. It also allows for much better information retention in my opinion. For example, with my last blog, “Poison Squad,” I know for a fact that I retained more information on the topic whilst reading through different online articles over and over again, trying to translate the information into my own words, and proof reading it several times than I would have if I had looked at a slide for one minute on the topic and then come back to my notes three weeks later before an exam and tried to recall what I had learned.