Why would you continue to blog in the future?

My blogging experience overall has been very positive. I have learnt a lot of things since I started blogging a few weeks ago. I have learnt to use more precise words which can represent what I say in a better way. I have learnt to manipulate WordPress and in the process, a little bit of HTML. Due to the subject of my blog, I have learnt to view an issue from different perspectives before expressing my point of view.

Blogging forces me to think and reflect in order to write, so that what was just an idea in my mind becomes more concrete. It allows people to get to know my opinions before they engage me as a person; saving time and potential frustrations.

It has been fun to go back and look at all the things I have done. Even though the blog is intended for others to read, it has helped me learn more about myself and appreciate my course of study.

 Who would you blog for?

One reason why I may not continue to blog as much as I do at present is that a lot of my time outside my primary duties is spent responding to other bloggers or butting into debates raging on other blogs.

 I think that knowing who you are blogging for is important. I sometimes struggled when writing a new post on my blog. I asked myself to whom am I actually writing? This had an impact on my writing style. At the beginning I thought that my blog is only known to my course colleagues and was not aware that the outside world could find my blog until I had a better understanding of the “tags” feature.

 What are the benefits of blogging for (i) yourself and (ii) others?

 The ultimate benefits of using blogs could be gained in any educational or learning setting. I would personally blog for my benefit as well as for others. If I am blogging for my students then they are the ones who are gaining the maximum benefit. I believe that everyone who is involved in blogging in a way or another is learning something. Even those who read blogs and don’t participate are benefiting from other people experiences.

Real-time micro-blogging is gaining in popularity. Twitter, is
a free (at present) service which lets you send a 140-character message or
“tweet”, to a site where anyone can read it.

What is twitter for? As with any social network, the answer is
the same: whatever you make of it. I think its immediacy makes it ideal for
spreading news “rumours”. Also, I find it useful to ask questions of my peers or
for following what topics they are interested in.

While many other social networking sites are only usable through a web browser, Twitter has broken free of the web; its text message-length “tweets” can be received on a mobile phone or other device.

First Steps to using Twitter:

• Twitter. com 
  Signing up is free and you are not obliged to follow anyone, or post
  anything, or let anyone follow you.
• whoshouldifollow.com answers the simple
  question. Given your username, it will look for other users with some
  overlap with the people you follow, and suggest them as people for you to
  follow.
• twitdir.com
  a directory to find people and quickly see the top 100 most followed and
  busiest twitterers.
• twitterholic.com
  the top users and accounts.
• summize.com
  search for a word or phrase across the entire Twitter feed.
• twitterforiphone.com Twitter for the iphone

The link above goes to one of the Shambles “Forest of Theme Blogs” pages that provide videos and other multimedia resources to support the topic here.

To view all of the Theme Blogs then go to the full list at http://www.shambles.net/blogforest  

It will take a while to sift through the lot so I will have to update this post later.