Basic Blogging, #potcert11

Explaining how to get started blogging was on my mind before this course started: a friend asked for help with basics. I assumed (and we all know the cliché about how that breaks down) everybody taking the class would already be a blogger. So I thought, why not revise and repurpose for the class? Too basic, just ignore it: filtering practice.

Blogging is not that different from writing email. The compose screens are very similar. Instead of emailing to designated addressees, you publish - send it into cyberspace. A number of blogging platform offer post by email, making blogging even more like email. Compose in your email program and save in drafts. Alternately, you can compose in a word processing program and then copy paste into the message screen. Use WordPad and save to rtf because Word has too much hidden garbage code that may not transfer well 

Explanatory stuff + links below the fold. Looking over a few blogs about teaching and in your subject area will help you get a feel for blogging and the possibilities. Best advice: just do and figure out the details as you go along. Ask questions: anyone you know who blogs is part of your learning network.

Into the #MOOC again

... but you never enter the same MOOC twice.

Adding the blog right off as part of the enrollment process put the feed right out there. Will that encourage regular blogging or blogger's block?

My own MOOC-blogging reticence puzzles me. I run a gang of blogs and generally post to about three a day. That's not counting affiliated twitter accounts and Facebook page. In other words, I've danced at this party plenty of time before, in front of both friends and strangers, so why be shy now? Maybe regular assignments are what I need ~ just like setting realistic blogging goals as New Year's resolutions.

Here I am, working my way through the POT list:

• already in the FB group
•  just filled out form
• waiting for password to add feed
• already in Diigo but need to join mccpot group
• finish reading syllabus (e.g. practice what we preach)
• writing that 1st blog post right now
• and then the Howdy Y'all blog post 
• on FB too

I am particularly pleased to have learned how to create a feed just for a single tag or label. Good news for a schizo multiple strand blog like this one. Although I've used this blog for a number of online workshops or courses with blog requirements, that is not it's primary purpose, especially between times. It started out being about the intersection of computers and the internet with teaching language/s and writing. Multiliteracies didn't take it OT, but MOOCs about teaching online have been a stretch. Both functions have suffered as a result. From the sidebar:

ABOUT ~ Writing includes email, blogs, wikis, genres less bound to but still involving computers. Web 2.0 collaboration, interaction, feedback, tech tools and apps that enhance the writing process. The blog started as part of an online workshop about teaching writing, with ESL instructors the intended audience, but has now gone beyond that and other boundaries. What happens to language when writing and computers collide? Or writing when language and computers meet up?

 Maybe I should write separate learning objective (per previous post) for each MOOC, including past ones with self-evaluation (eek). Learning objective should keep writing component in mind. I still intend to get to the Digital Divide too.