I blog, you blog, s/he blogs...

When we started down this blog path, was there an end in sight? There was for the original one, with a defined intention (follow a research project), but not really for mine, and as I’ve just been discussing exit strategies at work and they’re uppermost in my mind, I wonder if I should have. But then what would life be like if we always embarked on an adventure knowing and planning for the end? Key angst-creator from my teenage years: Judy Blume Forever, "Have you thought how this relationship will end?". I’m not sure what I was thinking when I began (woss new there then, I hear you say ), and although I don’t think I planned to do it forever, the distress I felt when I thought I’d lost lots made me realise how much a part of my life my blog has become. But now I need to compose something sensible about the whole process and experience, I find myself at a loss where to start. Actually, I don’t think that’s necessarily the topic, more cos I write properly so little anymore. I’m certain I’ve learnt a great deal, both about myself, my friends, perfect strangers (the friends I haven’t met yet) and the world in general since I got in to blogging, but trying to put it into words is quite tricky. I have a fascinating set of sites I read regularly, and some of these are about the phenomenon, but many of them aren’t, and I’ve done little in terms of serious research reading on the topic. It’s good to say ‘serious research reading’, as I know there are people out there doing serious research into blogs. Rather oddly, considering what I do for a living, I have more of an idea of blogs in professional environments and as social networks, most of them from a non-UK perspective (maybe less odd), than I do of what is happening in the field in the UK. I’m trying to rectify that this week, attending the Edublogs conference, and I hope that I’ll be able to come away with a better clarity of thought with regard to blogs in education, and what we can do to enhance the learning experience by using them. I’ve been trying to do some reading to force some focussed thinking before having my mind made up for me for the last few weeks and mostly failing miserably. It occurs to me that instead of producing something stilted and dodgy as a word document, what I should be doing is sharing the things I want to say with you, and letting you help shape it. Though you have mostly heard what I’ve got to say, and have already shaped what I think over the last year, I find when I go back through my postings and your comments . (I realise someone else was possessing me while I was in Stockholm, since I couldn’t possibly have come up with all that interesting stuff!!! Must have been the other me, the one whose rätta namn är inte heller katielou) And, having tried to sort out my thoughts into separate sections that I could draft individually, I realise that many of them are so interlinked as to be almost impossible to write about one without bringing in another . So that didn’t really get me anywhere. Although it has helped crystallised the broad things that I have decided matter, and they are (for comment, certainly):

• What is a blog?
• Software
• Review Criteria
• Motivation
• Audience
• Authorial voice
• Tone
• Content
• Elites
• Community
• Academic – staff (publishing, research, teaching)
• Academic – students (work, play, PDP)
• Exit Strategies