The 3 best things I’ve learned in the challenge

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.

8 thoughts on “The 3 best things I’ve learned in the challenge

  1. Yes
    Blogging is the back and forth, but like you, I have often neglected the commenting and discussion end of things. I don’t want to write into the void. I want to be part of a community.
    And it sounds like many of the bloggers in this challenge as voicing the same aspirations for a vision of a connected world.

    And so, a question: is blogging the right platform?

    As I bounce from blogging to twitter to social networking, it seems like they all have something I like but nothing has quite yet filled what I need. But I have been unable to articulate what I need (thus, the quandry).

    Thanks for sharing out your reflections. I need to work on a few of my own.

    Peace,
    Kevin

  2. Well done Betty. The three things you have learnt are what I was hoping most will get out of the challenge (and was the driving force for me when creating the challenge).

    Kevin, Good question and the reality will be probably a blend of different platforms (tools) to meet different needs and learning styles.

  3. Yes Kevin that is a great question, well not quite a formed question as yet. I guess I’m wrestling with a similar quandry and so now you can bet I’ll be watching your blog as you work through this “fuzzy situation”. My class wiki offers some community and connection but what I’m enjoying here is that you and Sue are both new to me where as my wiki so far isn’t set up or designed to invite in people from outside of a physical community even though we haven’t locked it down. Blogging has the potential I think to be more inviting; the challenge is definitely about finding ways to connect the blogs. Maybe no one “thing” is going to do that. In the past where I’ve stumbled across blogs most frequently, and in fact the only place that has led me to comment in the past, is through del.icio.us. I think the networking part of it has some possibilities. And, I have yet to understand how technocrati works even though I’ve managed to sign on to it.

    I guess one answer is what you’ve managed to create Sue because we aren’t just talking about ways of connecting. Really we’re talking about reasons to connect. We need to be able to find each other and have cause to stop and share ideas, reasons to take time. The challenge has really moved me into being excited about the thinking that is going on here.

  4. This is Kevin (as teacher blogger)
    I like your response that “we’re talking about reasons to connect.”
    And the reason, I think, is that we all crave some sense of belonging to something bigger than us, right? We want to feel necessary and valuable and would like to be part of “the conversations.”

    Interesting that you use Delicious as a place for comment. I have not really utilized the social networking aspects of Delicious — only to bookmark sites and follow the bookmarking of others in my network (I am dogtrax there, too).

    I wonder if the next wave of web-based technology will find some answers to our questions about platforms. (I suppose the Flock browser moves us in that direction, right, Sue?)

    Kevin

  5. Hmmm, I’m not sure I blog to satisfy my needing to feel necessary and valuable. I have three children, a husband and a network of friends in my physical world that seldom let me forget how necessary and valuable I am. I guess I’m lucky in that regard. Here is more for my craving to understand and make sense of my thinking. I believe I strive more for shared understandings of abstract things and ideas. Thus perhaps my reference to “stealing time” in an earlier post; while life is so full with trying to be ever present in the physical world, this internet world becomes almost a vacation place I go away to for time with my thinking. And now I’m finding that I’m able to meet people in this thinking space, people who are helping to raise questions and offer solutions. I’m thoroughly enjoying that.

  6. Great reflection! I especially like this statement:

    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).

    I love the idea of being an active member of the blogging community – and just being an active blogger isn’t enough. Participating in conversations is what gets the thinking going, and even though posting is a great conversation starter for what you’re thinking about, there are tons of other great conversation starters out there that you might never have thought of. That’s the powerful part of commenting for me, anyway!

    @Kevin: I think the fact that blogs are so much less connected than a social network makes them harder to feel like a community. It’s more like islands of conversation spread out across great distances than a group of people learning together. It’s kind of strange dynamic because I think we all know that we’re welcome to be part of any of the conversations that strike us, it’s just sometimes hard to find them. At least that’s my feeling about the whole thing…

  7. Yes, Kim: Islands.
    Nice metaphor.
    But hopefully, islands that connected by some warm ocean currents, right?
    Kevin

  8. I think people who regularly use blogs – read and write them – are people looking for a community to which they feel they belong. It used to be people joined a church, a cult, a club – real life options. Nowadays people join facebook, myspace, blogs, etc. In the “olden” days, we participated in those various activities once a week, or once a month. In the virtual world, we expect contact much more frequently, it seems. Many people are online every day. Personally, I don’t have the time to go online to read blogs, and I can’t imagine writing one for the fun of it. I have no purpose to do so, other than to explore these ideas right now.