Dean Shareski recently posted about blogs that succeed, and listed five simple ways he’s discovered to help students and teachers blog successfully:
Blogging is mostly about reading
- Provide as much time to read blogs as write
- When writing make sure you are responding to something you’ve read, seen or heard
To make a friend you have to be a friend
- If you want people to read and respond to your work, you will need to read and respond to theirs
- We have 2 ears and 1 mouth!
It’s personal
- Write about what you know
- Don’t lose the concept of conversation – it must flow from personal meaning
- Write stories that others can relate to and contribute to
Hyperlink
- Validity of blogs without links?
Get graphical
- Words are only one way to express ideas
- Embed video, audio and images
- Communicate beyond just words
I’ve been struggling a bit lately with finding the impetus to write, and I think its because I’ve over planned the whole “story” too much.
I’ve also been doing lots and lots of reading but not responding in any way – just thinking “Yeah, I agree with that!” and moving on to the next post.
Maybe I need to explore graphical ways of communicating – try out some new applications so I can use them/show them in class as well.
I shared Dean’s suggestions with my class and they had a lively discussion about the ideas raised – we’ve all agreed to get down and serious about improving our blogging this term, just you wait and see if we don’t 🙂