I’m blogging in two places, here and at TLITE online. TLITE online though is intended more as an information blog for the SFU TLITE program (Teaching and Learning in an Information Technology Environment) not my own personal blog. So when Sue Waters commented on my post there and asked me what three best things I’ve learned from the blog challenge, I decided to move that conversation here.
First off, it is a great question. Like blogging it general the question really made me think because when I write to post, as opposed to writing privately for my own clarity in thinking, it matters what I say. The blog challenge has made that even more apparent for me because by being encouraged to go and comment on other people’s blogs, I’m now finding that others come and find my blog.
So, what I learned? The first and most delightful thing is really a whole paradigm shift. It hasn’t happened just from the challenge alone but really from the convergence of a variety of factors, probably some of which made me decide to take on the challenge in the first place. That shift is about the amazing connection and webbing that can happen with blogging. Previously I had thought about it almost as a semi public version of my own private journal. I was never ever writing for an audience even though I knew others could read it, I hadn’t really thought about that they would. Now, the understanding that not only can others read it, but in fact they will read it adds a whole twist to the idea of being able to engage in a dialogue. I see blogging much differently. It has much more relevance towards being able to create voice and actively work for change. I’m interested in change in education, specifically change in the way we teach. Blogging has become a potentially powerful tool in promoting that change.
That leads to the second best thing I’ve learned in the challenge and that is that blogging is not just about doing what I am doing right now. To really be a blogger I can’t just write my own blog. I have to be an active member of the blogging community and so I have to get out there and read and comment on other people’s blogs. That is equally as important because it is the participation and active membership that makes blogging such an incredibly powerful change agent. But like any good conversation I learn from both listening to others (reading blogs) and exercising my voice (writing my blog).
The third best thing is that there are a whole lot of tricks and tips, best practices if you will in this blogging world. I’ve only discovered the tip of the iceberg but I’m on the lookout for building my own toolbox of what these are. I’m starting with the questions I’m coming across: how to keep a conversation going, when to comment back, when to move a conversation back here to my own blog site, how to track comments, how to collate my favorite blog sites into one collection, how to best use tags and so many more that I’ll discover today. So this third best thing is really that it is an art that I’m only just beginning to learn to master.