A guide for the overwhelmed, part 1 – blogging

It was another great Elluminate session for the ECI 831 class tonight. Our presenter was Darren Kuropatwa, and we were all in awe of how he ties together so many tools and technologies in his teaching. For anyone who wants to move in the direction of what Darren (and many others) is doing, where do we get started? I want to share some ideas that might help you get started if you are in a state of stuck-ness. Here are my thoughts on overcoming stuck-ness in blogging.

• write about something you did, heard, saw or read today that sticks out in your mind. Often, this will lead to further ideas and observations once you start writing. Warning – this can easily lead to your blog becoming a cat diary. Remain vigilant about this.
• Blog posts aren’t essays. They are, to borrow from a friend of mine, ideas and thoughts. Let your ideas flow out as they come to you. Blogs are thoughts made visible so they don’t have to be as perfectly organized as a Ph.D. dissertation. (Thanks to D’Arcy Norman for reminding me of Brian Lamb’s reference to Konrad Glogowski’s post). This is more about process than product.
• Share the love. Link to other bloggers if you quote them, mention them or talk about their ideas. (See above for an example)
• Your audience is you. There are various views on this, but I always think of my posts as notes to myself. If others feel like reading what I write, great. If my only audience is me, I can live with that.
• Write about anything and put it all in one blog. I’ve tried to have many separate blogs – one for work, one for personal reflection, one for university courses – and it never worked for me. My brain has many disparate ideas in it and they all compete for my attention so I try to give them all their chance to get out. If you do need to have a work blog or course blog, find a tool that makes it easy to cross post to them and your main blog.
• Never write anything in a blog that you wouldn’t say to anyone in public. I have two reasons for this. First, Google is always watching and so is the Internet Archive. Second and more important, dishonesty and gossip are bad karma.
• Don’t be afraid to write short posts. Especially if you write late at night, like I am now.

More thoughts to come, but not until I am rested.

Cross post to EC&I 831: Computers in the Classroom

UPDATE – I added a link to Dean Shareski’s blog. I thought that if I was going to suggest that you link to others, I should be doing the same thing myself. That’s what happens when you blog after midnight. Sorry for the oversight, Dean.

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