Anyone know of any good courses on blogging? I thought I would like blogging, when I was asked to contribute to the RSC Wales Learning Technology blog. Writing about something I love to talk about … having a secret (or not so secret) ambition to one day write a book … no problem, I thought. But, I am going to admit to worrying about writing this blog, having that nagging voice telling me that I should be doing it, feeling as though I was about to sit an exam or go into a job interview, hoping that when I have published it no-one will read it … and then I think about the learners who are being asked to blog … how do they feel? Their work is usually only seen by their tutor … blogs can potentially be viewed by anyone. Having a purpose / writing for a real audience is great … but it actually doesn’t make me feel any better about this
Maybe it’s because I’m blogging as RSC Wales Helen, rather than as Helen, which I think would be different. Maybe the learners only ever blog as themselves. Maybe they don’t worry like I do …
Anyway, now that I have shared my concerns/fears about blogging … I am going to share how I am attempting to overcome this using another technolgy … Twitter … the microblogging service. Only being able to ‘tweet’ (tweet = post to Twitter, for those who haven’t come across this one) 140 characters is much less daunting than having to write this potentially never ending blog. I also have a handy application on my phone that means I can ‘tweet’ at the moment I have something to say, which I am finding helps a lot too. In the last week I have actually found myself tweeting (about technology) every day… and looking forward to it.
I will continue with this blog because facing my fears is something I need to do … but if you are interested in knowing what I am really thinking about technology, as I think it, then you can follow my tweets – HelenHRSC is my Twitter name.
… and going back to my first question … anyone know of any good blogging courses?
Edublogs has some good stuff (http://theedublogger.edublogs.org/).
When I start my adul learners off on blogging I give them a writing frame based on the suggestions from an English teacher blog at: http://sheehy.edublogs.org/2007/09/06/blog-whats-a-blog/
Normally flags up any potential concerns, so they can be addressed.
This is great Leia… thank you.
I don’t really think that many teachers would throw their learners into the deep end with blogs and expect them to get on with it … but I do think that in some cases it is expected that because you can do (a) and like (b) (write and like technology) you can do (c) (blog about tech) without any help. I can drive and like Formula One racing … but there’s no way I could drive a Formula One racing car without a lot of help
I am now following you on twitter, Helen! (juliadesigns)
Thanks Julia … I’ll try to make some useful technology tweets
[...] those of you who read my previous post about blogging you will know that this is not something I find easy or enjoy doing BUT that I have been [...]