Quest for a Better Blog
January 14, 2008 by googtweetblog
This all started after Sue Waters of Mobile Technology in TAFE emailed me offering advice on how to improve on my blog. Now, why would Sue take the time out of her day to email ME? Simply stated, it’s because she’s the type of educator and blogger who cares. Over the past few days, Sue has become my unofficial blogging mentor, and I value her advice tremendously. I just can’t get over the fact that a total stranger (well, I guess I knew her through Twitter!) would do this for me! Seems like Sue is just that kind of gal, though, because you’ll notice on her blog that she was awarded the “Bloggers Who Build Communities” award from The Bamboo Blog. Since first corresponding with Sue, I’m attempting to be “her” kind of blogger. I don’t see a point in blogging without a community supporting me and vice versa, so I’m embarking on this quest. Equally important is my feeling that I can’t teach blogging without learning blogging. As just anyone in the world has the power to create a blog, I feel it’s my responsibility to go above and beyond to learn all that I can. My students (and colleagues learning from me in the professional development arena) deserve to have an educator who is dedicated to learning.
In addition to Sue’s mentoring, on Sunday morning on twitter (hmmm, seems like there’s a trend here) @jessmcculloch was asking for help in finding a new theme for her blog. Well, we went back and forth for a bit before deciding to move the discussion to google chat where we again went back and forth discussing her new blog theme and trying to find one for mine. The discussion ended with us agreeing to try the 31 Days to Building a Better Blog project at ProBlogger. The project simply gives one tip a day for creating a better blog, nothing too difficult. I’m dedicated to creating a blog that I feel attached to and giving readers a good blog experience, and I need a little more guidance (without giving Sue another full-time job!)
I look forward to this blog-improvement journey - hope you’ll join me for the ride! Day 1 is today, let’s see how it goes………..
(edited to add: Jess Mcculluch and Sarah Stewart are joining me in the challenge - check out their journeys at Jess’ blog - The Rise of Reflection and Sarah’s blog - Sarah’s Musings.)
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I am so pleased for both you and Jess because the 31 Day Project had such a huge impact on me - here is where I summarised the tasks we had to do and what I learnt from the project. The most important part of the project was not just working through the tasks but doing it as a community, which was very important because we learnt from each other. Our community formed for two reasons — Michele Martin invited bloggers to join her and then we (myself and Frances McLean) added the chocolate challenge to it — which encouraged even more people to join. If you have an opportunity to do as we did, and encourage others to join you I strongly recommend you do so.
The reason I did the project was for exactly the same reason as you — if I wanted to use blogging with students or teach others how to be a blogger I needed to learn more about blogging myself. Helping others is normal for me — always happy to help. So many amazing people have done the same for me.
Hi Kate
I’m really enjoying your blog since first discovering it only recently - reading your ‘1 week of Blogging - Lessons Learned’ post.
I can really relate to some of your pointers, and it’s honesty certainly made me grin.
I’d also like to recognise Sue Waters (http://twitter.com/dswaters) for the one on one blog mentoring she offered me last Sunday Morning too, via Twitter when I tweeted:
“First realisation of the day: Blogging is not for the faint hearted”
Sue took the time to find out why I tweeted this comment - and helped me think through why I was feeling so frustrated with the blog post I was trying to develop.
Sue is a great role model of how to operate in a social network - always be willing to help others and share. She’s certainly an inspiration to me - and many others.
Looking forward to your next posting.
Allison Miller
Adelaide, Australia
http://twitter.com/theother66
Sue -
Glad you got to see your name here
You’ve been an immense help to me in the time that we’ve been working together and I look forward to reading your post on your experience with the project.
Allison -
Looks like I’m already following you on twitter! If you haven’t already done so, think about joining in the challenge with me. I’d love some more support! I’ll be adding your blog to my google reader!
Kate
Hi Kate and Alison, I’m keen to do the 31 day challenge with you. Been wanting to do it for a while but wanted to find someone to ‘play’ with. cheers Sarah
Hi Kate, did my first activity for the 31 day challenge today-pretty easy really.
Andy Roberts is also joining us: http://distributedresearch.net/blog/
Hello Kate! I don’t know if you all are still accepting participants in this experience or not, but if you are I would really like to be included. I really appreciate your comment, “Equally important is my feeling that I can’t teach blogging without learning blogging. As just anyone in the world has the power to create a blog, I feel it’s my responsibility to go above and beyond to learn all that I can. My students (and colleagues learning from me in the professional development arena) deserve to have an educator who is dedicated to learning.” I too feel that I need to know how to do the thing well myself before I can comfortably teach it. As an educational technology instructor, I would really like to improve my blogging expertise and become a more visible member of the “blogosphere.”
Hi Michelle, you are extremely welcome to join us - we’re only a small group at the moment so welcome all comers.
I am having great fun so far. Have added RSS and email feeds to my blog, as well as a search facility. cheers Sarah