Blogtrax

I’ve noticed a number of academic contacts slowing-up on their posting frequency and I don’t think it’s just a seasonal thing. Maybe we’ve passed the first flush of blogging - saying this, I’m really thinking about a fairly limited group of academic bloggers in the UK . Elsewhere in the blogosphere, people come and go, change service and so on. That seems like a natural rhythm.

Although posting is sometimes a bit of a chore, it’s become a real habit for me and there’s no shortage of stuff to put up there. So I can’t really see slowing-up myself at this point in time. Recently, my posting has been much more focused on digital literacy and from time to time I’ve found myself commenting on education which is a bit of a new departure for me.

I have my blog set as my home page, and therefore tend to look at it regularly. I use the sidebar links a lot, particularly while I’m working. So it’s identity performance, regular updating and a handy bookmark all at the same time. I do most of my blog reading at home. My patterns vary a bit, but I check my favourite blogs every couple of days, others every week or so. At the moment I’m not using any feeds, because Snap gives me a quick page view which does just as well.

Usually when I’m writing (and reading more) there are more links to papers and stuff. Other times the posts are like observations, proto-thoughts or field notes. Currently blogging is quite a quick process - maybe 10 mins or so, but every so often I have the need (or interest) to build up my photo-stock on Flickr….so that can add to the length of time involved.

I don’t spend a lot of time tinkering with the look of my blog, although I do wish it looked a bit less busy (like the Critical Literacies one). The last thing I did was add Snap - then before that I just wasted about half an hour one night working out how to put a space in between my photo and the blog title (how sad is that?). The other thing I do on a regular basis, as it happens, is update my reading/listening bit through 43 things. That’s very personal - I love doing that - but I don’t thing anyone else cares at all. No-one’s ever commented on that on the blog or face2face!!

Well it’s a good while since I blogged here, and given the avowed intention of keeping Blogtrax alive as a log of an ungoing autoethnography it does seem to be limping along and that’s largely a matter of time - having the time to keep up a reflective blog whilst posting on my personal blog, shared blogs, student blogs and, of course, reading favourites and new ones gobbles up the time. Put that together with life (and explorations of new social networking sites) it all adds up to a convincing excuse.

My personal blog is now 3 years old - that seems significant in itself - and I’ve been wanting to reflect on that for a week or so. In 3 years I have just over 500 posts - that works out at roughly one every other day on average, but given that I was away 3 months and often stop when I’m abroad, my ‘normal’ frequency is higher than that. OK so that’s a bit boring, but one thing that it shows is that its a pretty regular part of what I do - part of my life. Mostly, I just like doing it and enjoy the exercise of thinking about something that’s interesting and then writing it up. I like watching it grow as an unbounded, cumulative text.

It’s hard to tell how my posts change over time, but it seems they’re nearly all to do with technology, writing and teaching and how these things intersect with my personal and professional life. I think I tend to add in local colour about what I’m up to, what my family’s doing and then add the occasional comment about current affairs - but these provide background detail. I use my sidebar to show reading and music, but my comments on these are minimal. My sidebar is a mess, but it’s one of the most useful bits for me. Since my blog is set as my homepage, it’s got some of the most important links for me.

I’m interested in how I use my blog for different purposes. A common one is when people email about research stuff (eg I read so and so, is there any more?). It’s dead easy just to say, check the links on my blog…but also when friends or students hear about Ruth’s singing - I can’t remember any details, but I can say ‘Look for Ruth on the sidebar.’ I’m sure there’s much more like this but these examples really blow a whole in that idea that a blog is an online journal. I mean who’s journal has that kind of functionality?

Most of the time I love my blog. I like its distinctive, quirky look and I like it when people unexpectedly stumble on it. It’s good the way people pick up on different things ‘Oh I saw my picture!’ or ‘I liked the bit you wrote about’, ‘I don’t get it’ or ‘I liked that picture of the steam engine.’ - whatever. Sometimes I’ve got too much to say and these days I just try to keep it to a paragraph; sometimes what I’ve got is a collection of completely unrelated things; sometimes I can’t think of anything to write. Sometimes I hate my blog. I hate it most when I don’t feel I have anything to say, when I’m tired but still in the trall of that blog addiction.

But when I look back at my posts (with the possible exception of the very early ones which I thought were secret) I feel good about them. If there’s humour I don’t really care if no-one else laughs. If there’s insight, I don’t care if there are no comments. Sometimes I get the feeling that some readers might find what I’ve written pretentious but I don’t care because that’s what was on my mind. I often read the whole screen of my blog, and I nearly always think ‘Yes….good’. I hardly ever regret posting something.

Last, and really a rather funny thing that’s worthy of comment is my fear of transferring to the new blogger format. Funny because I’ve been raving for ages about getting category tags on Blogger…and now they’re here…BUT that means transferring my blog with the possibility that some of the add-ons and its particular look may shift. Will I be old-skool for ever? Probably not, but I’ve recognised that I may need time when I make that leap and so far I haven’t had it!

(Not really a postscript but another bit after ‘last’). In my teaching I’ve been looking at the blog as a reflective tool…now I’m beginning to see that everywhere. Of course you couldn’t say that it’s part of the blog architecture, blogging is no more or less reflective than any other kind of writing but composing your thoughts for your ideal reader is certainly a common blog genre - long may it thrive!

Sarah had a link to this blog, which is one of a type - a travel blog. Profgirrl also described her japan visit recently and also blogged whileshe was away, giving us news. Anya also kept in touch when she was at a conference, as did Guy.

The bloggers give us a sense of their new experiences in relation to the space they are in, even though in fact they report to us from within the same cyberspace. As far as we are concerned, they could be anywhere - they are not in our space at any rate. yet we still get a sense of their changed location through their blogs. So much blogging is like journalism and this is one of those similarities - people bringing news from all over the world.

Sarah also linked to this blog which gives a really interesting description of how educators could use Flickr.

But check out THIS as well - a piece of software using communities of practice theory to generate learning on the web.Moodle calls itself a ‘learning management system’ and could be a money making thing that I don’t much like. Band and Wagon come to mind..
I likethe Flickr idea alongwith mobile phones and tagging though. Would suit adult learners in particular I think. I also liked this educational project, (using Flat Stanley ) which I saw sometime ago and wrote about on DrJoolz .

I have just discovered that you can do a search, using Google, to find posts on Blogger blogs. I suppose everyone else knew this AGES ago, but I have only just found out. Look here.

By typing ‘Flickr’ in the Google box when on DrJooz, it threw me all the posts where I mention Flickr. Cool.

Finally while we are on the topic of Flickr, thanks to Anya for telling about the ComicLife tags on Flickr and giving us another educational use of Flickr. Another example of people learning together about visuals, multi modalities and this time also, narrative.Fantastic stuff. Am going to HAVE to get the software from Apple. See these other examples.