One of the most frequent questions I receive in my Web Expressions class in which I have my students working with blogs is “What do you want me to blog about?” Now this class has a focus on creative thought and the expression of that thought through various types of web-based tools. To me, now, it would seem an obvious answer – whatever drives you, turns you on, turns your up, ignites your passion! But then I thought back to my first effort with a blog and saw how dispassionate and uninspired I had been and what came of it.
So I examined the question I was asking myself and came up with two potential answers. One, I needed to know why I was blogging and two, being a visual learner, I wanted to see examples of blogs in action to get a feel for what others were doing.
Perhaps the best “How-To” I came across was developed by Stephen Downes. His post on How To Be Heard is an excellent step by step, design based approach to developing and maintaining a quality blog.
Here are a list of some of the blogs I follow regularly:
- http://headrush.typepad.com/creating_passionate_users/ – One of my favorites
- http://mamamusings.net/ - Elizabeth Lane Lawley, formerly of RIT, on sabbatical with MS
- http://www.downes.ca/news/OLDaily.htm – OLDaily – a newsletter for Online Learning, Stephen Downes
- http://www.downes.ca/ – Another Stephen Downes blog with a focus on pedagogy
- http://www.elearnspace.org/blog/ – learning, networks, knowledge, technology, community
- http://www.weblogg-ed.com/ – Another of my edtech resources
