Estimated reading time: 3 minutes, 55 seconds
I realized a few posts ago that I was approaching my 100th blogpost and tweeted about it. This is one response I got…
"Best of" recap? β@Bali_Maha: I'm 8 posts away from my 100th blogpost… Should i make it special, somehow? #rhizo14 ;)β
— Rick Bartlett (@rbb2nd) May 13, 2014
I started drafting this post and named it 100 blogposts later, and the Take That song “A Million Love Songs Later” has been playing in my head ever since!
So anyway! This is a reflection on some blogposts… Not a “greatest hits” (I am not that popular yet!), though I did look at which were most frequently viewed. But the impact of a blogpost is sometimes something that goes beyond what you can see in the stats or comments. I’ll explain as I go… (Note many of these posts were written before i had my own domain but i am linking to their new location on my own domain)
I was a blog waiting to happen
This is the post I actually started my blog in order to write: We are nerds…so how do we reach our students?
It generated a lot of discussion on facebook among my friends, and it is one I refer to often because it shares an idea I think about a lot, and some of my ideas about approaches to pedagogy and curriculum. I have had many posts where I felt compelled to publish am idea, thought, or ramble that did not fit with any of the places I used to publish before (primarily my department’s newsletter, and Al-Fanar)
For a while I was blogging almost daily (during intense MOOCing, mainly) but I have slowed down a bit. I still sometimes post 2 or even occasionally 3 posts a day, but I can now go for a whole week without posting (and thats a drought hehe). Still 100 posts in 5 months is pretty intense. That’s about 20 posts a month.
Blogging enhanced my MOOC experience, especially #rhizo14
i actually got to know about #rhizo14 based on a blog post i wrote linking to Dave’s blog, where some of the links in his post (linking back to the now closed-down Innovate were dead). I contacted him on Twitter, and that was how I came to know about the upcoming #rhizo14
One of the posts that really made a big difference (good or bad) and that I kept referring to for a long time afterwards is this one, which expressed how I was feeling/thinking at the time:
Body of knowledge or embodied knowledge
Another one I loved was this one: Vulnerability of social media participation
Not because of my own post, but because of the very insightful comments about other people’s blogging experiences.
Some blog posts led to publications…
Two posts on this blog were later slightly re-written for publication on (Al-Fanar: i.e. I wrote them on the blog, then the editor of Al-Fanar asked to re-publish them): the one about my excitement about the Arab MOOC Edraak (generated lots of discussion on rhizo14 facebook as well; strangely, i prefer my original post that links back to FutureEd more than the edited more generic one for Fanar) and The power of social media for the semi-privileged (which was tweeted quite a lot, helped me make some new friends, and the term semi-privileged created some controversy).
It is also through my blogging and his, that I was able to get together with Shyam Sharma and based on previously published blog posts and mag articles, decided to write together our two bonds of difference articles on Hybrid Pedagogy
Blogging enhanced my conference experiences
For example, my blogging through #et4online helped me enjoy the experience more as I reflected on it, both on my own blog and on my test blog on Reclaim. I was awarded top virtual participant (prob also for my tweeting and chatting during conference talks as well), and they even interviewed me on Hangout
I also blogged afterthoughts on our local Open Access event, though given the amount of tweeting going on there, i might try my hand at liveblogging soon as well.
Blogging helped my teaching
I could reflect on my teaching, ask for advice, use old blog posts with my students (such as this professional development one), and share excitement (e.g. About my gaming module).
Blogging allowed me to express deep thoughts and feelings I needed to express out loud to my online friends.
Like the Liberating the Oppressor and Breaking the Cycle of Oppression, and also the more recent “Dr. Thing”
I’ll stop here. I had another post planned for today, but will keep it in draft so I can post this 100th blogpost first π Simon Ensor said to write it as if it were my last…couldn’t do that, sorry π