I was talking about starting a blog with a soon-to-be-colleague earlier this week and it made me think back to two and a half years ago when I first started blogging … or as I described it to them, was dragged kicking and screaming (perhaps a touch dramatic) into the world of blogging. This is my last blog post for RSC Wales so it seems appropriate for it to be about something that I have learnt and (sort of) grown to love and will take away from this job … hopefully into my next one.

Recently I came across James Michie’s ‘10 things I’ve learnt about blogging‘ blog post, where after a year he lists the things he thinks are important about blogging. Although I agree with many it then made me realise that  there are different ways of blogging and that the purpose (reflective for yourself as a learner … or outward facing to share and discuss your personal thoughts or your organisation’s thoughts) affects how you blog.  I’ve been blogging in different ways, for different audiences (here since 2008 for RSC Wales, as a learner for the Open University, as a guest for the FOTE10 event and more recently for myself) and if I tried to write a ’10 things I’ve learnt about blogging’ I think it would be slightly different in each case. So, if I was to give advice to someone thinking about starting a blog, the main things I have learnt and would want to pass on are:

• It is not as easy as some people make it look …  even after 2 and a half years practice of different types of blogging I feel I have a lot to learn from those who do it well and I will be taking note of the great tips in the BBC’s College of Production  ‘Better Blogging’ podcast.
• Be clear who your audience is and adapt your style of writing to suit … which is the same as you would for any type of writing … a formal letter (or email) of resignation to your employer as compared to a chatty letter to your friend … an account of an event in your personal diary as compared to a formal written report of the same event.
• Read lots of blogs … and learn from the ones you like but also the ones you don’t

Signing off now as HelenHRSC from this great learning experience …

Recently I’ve heard a few comments and queries about the role of social networking in education, as you would expect there are a wide range of opinions from a resounding “yes” to “no, it’s a waste of time”.

It seems to me that there is really not a lot of concrete evidence out there to say one way or another that sites like Facebook and Myspace have a place in education.  I did find some research undertaken by Christine Greenhow from the University of Minnesota which does demonstrate some benefits of social networking.

They have found that social networking fosters communication and creativity and allows students to express their opinions, emotions and thoughts.

They also found that where students may get some training in class on a subject such as video creation or creative writing if the student is interested and inspired by the subject they may go on learning in their own time. Social networks allow students to display their creations and get feedback and reviews from their peers.

Sir Ken Robinson said at a recent TED conference “Creativity is as important as literacy” and that “We are educating people out of their creative capacities”. With that in mind don’t you think Social networking is a great way to encourage creativity as well as literacy?

Blogging and communication tools can be used for reflection as well as interaction, there is evidence that these tools improve literacy and can help develop a social conscience. A lot of organisations are becoming increasingly interested in e-portfolios but there are currently many definitions of what an e-portfolio is. Some e-portfolios encourage reflection and the keeping of a diary, some allow work and evidence to be uploaded and some allow peer review.  As far as I can see the IT and social skills required for interacting with an e-portfolio are already being developed, social networking sites are working as a training ground without anyone realising it!

We do need to be careful though, I recently came across a quote which I’ll have to paraphrase as unfortunately I can’t find the original source: The best way for a social network (such as Facebook) to kill off a rival would be to say that the rival is educational.

Expecting that we can shoehorn education into students’ existing social networks is probably the wrong idea. Trying to create copies of social networks in education and expecting students to use them like Facebook may also be a mistake. Beware of trying to be too cool and creating a Creepy Treehouse*

Obviously Social networks have downsides too, most students realise that they can be a distraction from their studies, one thing that we should perhaps think about rather than banning and blocking sites is how to encourage their use as an effective study break.

The other main hazards are breaches of privacy, security and digital identity; however the online world isn’t going to go away and can be hazardous to everyone no matter what age they are or what experience they have. Learning to be safe online is an essential life skill these days, effective teaching about these dangers should form a core part of education.

Interestingly whilst I’ve been writing this article I’ve had several related tweets on Twitter pointing to some relevant articles,  I’ll leave you with some links to follow should you want to explore this subject more.

Christine Greenhow from the University of Minnesota:

http://www1.umn.edu/urelate/newsservice/Multimedia_Videos/social_network.htm

Very entertaining talk by Sir Ken Robinson on education and creativity

Schoolchildren should be encouraged to write blogs and use social networking sites like Facebook to improve literacy levels

Children who use technology are ‘better writers’

* A creepy treehouse is a place built by scheming adults to lure in kids. Kids tend to sense there’s something creepy about that treehouse and avoid it. Hence, a new definition: “Any institutionally-created, operated, or controlled environment in which participants are lured in either by mimicking pre-existing open or naturally formed environments, or by force, through a system of punishments or rewards.”

I have been twittering and tweeting on about Twitter (the microblogging flavour of the moment) for a few months now (see my previous 2 posts) … one of the reasons being that I have been using it as a way of communicating my technology/teaching and learning thoughts quickly and regularly and another reason being to try to overcome my ‘fears’ about blogging as part of my job. I think the time has come for me to draw a conclusion as to the ‘experiment’ I started back in January, particulary as I spotted (and tweeted) today that Twitter seems to be becoming the teaching and learning tool of choice these days, according to Jane Hart’s ‘Top Tools for Learning 2009′ survey update:

So here are my conclusions as to this Twitter experiment:

• I have thoroughly enjoyed using Twitter to share the technology related teaching and learning stuff I find out and think about as I am going through my working day. Having to compress my thoughts to 140 characters has been challenging but good for my brain too!
• I will continue to tweet, despite declaring this experiment over because for me I have found it a great way to get my thoughts down in text (to refer to later if I need to) rather than having them buzzing round in my head. A few people have even found my tweets of use!
• I have found out some really interesting things that I probably wouldn’t have if I hadn’t been using Twitter … from the people I follow but also from those who have replied to me.
• Choosing who to follow and who to stop following has been the trickiest part of all of this for me … once someone has tweeted something useful, it can be a wrench to choose to stop following them when they then tweet mostly irrelevant (to me) stuff , just incase they tweet something useful again.
• As I suspected before I started and now having heard from current-tweeters, lapsed-tweeters and ex-tweeters, as with any tool it is only useful if it has a particular job to do … and it is not going to be right for every job or for every one.
• And finally … I do think this has been a step towards helping me to jump back into the ‘proper blogging’ driving seat, so I will be giving it another go and attempting to post regularly here on the RSC Wales blog … time will tell

More information on Twitter and the stuff I have been doing and found out can be found at: http://moodle.rsc-wales.ac.uk/twitter

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