Autumn 2007 Blogging Course

Name of course: Blog Your World (“Blogging”)
Tutor: Libby Davy
Enquiries: 01273 540 023 or 07968 687 107 (Mon-Fri 8am - 7pm)

NEW CLASS TIMES & START DATE

Eight weeks in a row (not including half-term school holiday)

Monday mornings 10-12 noon
8 October - 3 December
or
Tuesday evening 7-9pm
2 October - 27 November

Feel free to phone and discuss your personal, group or organisational blogging goals or clarify any element of the course. I will be working with you to deliver a personalised learning programme that meets the goals you set after further research and reflection.

Content of course

• Learning a new way to make the most of the internet
• Developing a writing practice
• Enhancing your own ability for life-long learning
• Promoting yourself, your organisation or a project you are working on
• Taking control of your ability to publish what you want, when you want online
• Looking for a feedback mechanism for research, communications, marketing.
• Finding a new way to collect, organise, reflect on and share you interests and work.

Blogs are websites you add to regularly and easily, and are like private/public journals, but a whole lot more. Blogs (or web logs) can include words, images, sound and links as well as comments back from your new-found audience. This is your chance to find out what blogging is all about and get your very own (or a group) blog working for you. Blogging is an effective, profound new way for you or a group to communicate, connect, learn and be heard via the power of the internet.

Get your own blog hosted free on the internet within just a few weeks. It can include words, images, sound, links and comments back from your new-found audience. Publish instantly and easily - in your own way, in your own time. Develop greater confidence in expressing yourself, in a supportive and friendly environment. Share ideas and inspiration with a like-minded local or global community. Enhance your public profile.

Your teacher Libby Davy has over a decade’s experience working professionally and teaching communications. Libby is an awarded short-story writer and has had her work broadcast on national radio. For many years, Libby worked in strategic communications, marketing, organizational development, photograhy and business coaching. She has experience in planning and executing communications campaigns across most industry and community sectors. Libby is now doing an MA in Person Centred Education at Sussex University to extend her thinking around education.

By the end of the course, you will have found your voice and be confidently blogging.

Who is it for: (who, what level, what previous experience)

The course is suitable for absolute beginners and those new to blogging. Experienced bloggers should attend the follow-on course.

For anyone interested in blogging for personal, community, academic, creative, business or organisational growth.

You do not need to:
• have set-up a blog before
• be an experienced writer (as you will be developing your own style in a safe, expansive way).

You do need to:
• be willing to learn with yourself, your co-learner, your teacher, your extended community.
• have used computers before for internet searching and word processing.

If in doubt, contact your teacher direct at authenticblogging.com

What will I learn?

• How to create a blog (or weblog) from beginning to end.
• How to modify templates to suit your project.
• What a blog is, and is not.
• How to express yourself more confidently using a range of media (words, images, sound files, links).
• How develop and maintain a regular blogging practice.
• How to inspire, collect and organize your material and reflect on your area of interest with private or public posts.
• How to connect with like-minded people and learn within a community - in the classroom, online and around the world.
• How to be published.
• How to increase interest in your work, research, project or organisation.
• How to optimize your blog to increase the attention it gets, eg. Google ranking.

The course will involve group discussion, analysis of example blogs, self managed learning, individual support, some homework, online help for technical aspects, review sessions and an ongoing community to draw from and continue the learning journey in safe, appropriate, fulfilling and expansive ways.

Check out what our new friends at NixonMcInnes have got to say about blogging and social media in general. We love those guys, even though we’ve only just met (some of) them. (Hi Tom! Congratulations Will.)

Frenzy

Gra and I just watched Blog Wars (BBC 4 on 17/01/07 from the University of Sussex archives). Wow. Americans getting rabid. Never a pleasant sight. Then I had a wee surf to see what’s up in the blogosphere having had my head elsewhere for a bit. Have some serious concerns about the frenzy many popular bloggers seem to get themselves into. Like, the more controversial I get, the louder I shout, the more I flame and shame others, the bigger my audience will get. And sure, I can see the parallel with shock jocks on radio and tabloid journalism. But frankly, I’m looking for something different. Something authentic, a little more considered. I guess it just depends on who your audience is.

I’m also not interested in spending my life in a virtual world cultivating virtual relationships. I clearly see the power and potential of the internet and blogging in particular. But there is nothing like real people and real-life, in the flesh, human contact. I hear myself banging on to Gra about that all the time.

It’s all a question of balance, innit. I hear myself saying this again and again. Let’s see if I can live it! Even with facebook spawning…

Anonymity and Who’s Hot in Academic blogging?

The joys of anonymous (?) blogging. “Oso” gives us a Thinking Blogger’s take on who’s hot in academic blogging. At least from this (circular) point of view.

I guess Thinking Bloggers are allowed to have longer posts, because they are more interesting and indepth ;-) Hmm. Yes and no. A good debate to be had there.

Best that we hear from a wide range of people (you!) as to who’s hot in academic blogging. I’ll be looking out for bloggers from different fields, blogging for different reasons. For research, for teaching, for media engagement.

If you find anything in your travels you think we should be looking at, add a link in the comments here or contact me direct.

Would you relish the freedom of anonymity? What would you do with it? Personally I think it could be hard to maintain, and make it difficult to use your blog in any direct way that contributes to your research or teaching. But there is always the option of offering up to the world more than one blog… more than one identity, more than one self. I’ve got three going at the moment.

Unlike Mr Mingay (who I finally met up with at Sussex last week and cheers to that). More on and from Mr M as we travel along. We can only hope! David says he uses his blog to “pontificate”‘ and patently, to continue the complex and engaging debates from his classes to a different time and space. That’s probably why he is on myspace and facebook. It’s where the kids (and big kids) hang out, innit. Myself included. Make that four blogs, depending on what your definition of a blog is.

Obviously a man comfortable with being himself, in and out of the classroom. Lovely stuff.

Another personal favourite is Dr Esther MacCallum-Stewart, queen of juxtaposition and audience engagement. No wonder she’s doing well in the media. Her recent post on the Public V Private question summarises much of our thinking. Check it out and let’s hear your comments.

Freeing the writer within

Things have been moving along fast with our new courses, plus we’ve had a much needed holiday. We took our dear old VW camper “Lulu” through France down to basqueland - San Sebastian and Bilboa. More about all that soon on our family blog gravyland, hopefully with some of Bea’s artwork and a few pix.

On long drives and green hills I found time and space to again receive the wisdom of Natalie Goldberg in Writing Down the Bones. The words (on paper) were flowing. So good to feel that again. To really look and see and feel what was going on around me, and write it down. Much food for free thinking and new ways of synthesising ideas… seeing the patterns, making connections. The conversations we all shared helped things brew too.

Better out than in.

I really can’t recommend another book more highly for, as she promises and delivers, “freeing the writer within”. No matter what your blogging or writing context. We are first and foremost human beings, with our own unique perspective on our subject matter. If we want our writing, our blogging to inspire and inform, it needs to be coming from some one, not just anyone. People connect with people, they want to hear people, not robots.

Start with Natalie. It’s as simple as that.

Course updates in the next post.

True confessions

Thanks to our mate Kath Norcross in Australia for some fab reference sites. If you are:

a parent - on the wilder side, and/or

into personal blogging or memoir writing

check out

http://girlsgonechild.blogspot.com/
http://truemomconfessions.com/

http://smithmag.net/

“Everyone has a story. Tell your’s here.”

Smith mag is a great one for anyone wanting to get inspired to write from a person-centred perspective. You can always contribute to their blog/magazine too.