6. Set Your Goals: Think about
Find a creative outlet purpose.
Journal your thoughts
Year / Month /
Learn something new
Week / Day
Address a burning issue
Share your knowledge Put your goals in
Build authority writing!
Join a community
Start a business Draft your About
Page
7. Find Your Voice:
“The personality,
point of view, and
style you use when
you write.”
-
@JessJurickWordCam
pMiami 2010
8. Find Your Voice: Be authentic.
“Brainstorm 10-20
Who is your
personality
audience?
attributes – narrow
Where is your to 3-5.” -Problogger
expertise?
What are you “Love your reader.”
interested in? – Don Miller
What do you have to
say?
9.
10. Get Organized:
Be realistic.
Frequency – How
often can you Use Categories:
write? Identify 3-5
Topic – What will you
write about? Try an Editorial
Calendar.
Topic
Categories Create idea
Post ideas “pitches.”
11. Travel Photography
Lighting &
Equipment
Exposure
Air Travel
New tripod
Lessons Low key High key
review
Learned Techniques Techniques
13. Category Topic Description
Current Is it time to Is "eLearning" passé? Maybe it’s all just "learning." Especially as more
Trends drop the campus-based programs and courses integrate online components in
"e"? addition to face-to-face meetings. And it's not just higher ed, as K-12
and corporate training environments use all available resources to
both improve learning and streamline the administration side. I'll
provide some examples and highlight a few of the leaders also calling
for us to drop the "e."
Resources for It's not just Tips and techniques online students can use to leverage this Google
Online Google, it's tool to find the resources they need for course assignments. I'll
Students Google compare a Google Scholar search to a 'regular' Google search, and
Scholar include a list of the types of materials they should be looking for,
such as dissertations and theses, academic journal articles. Not all of
these items will be available in full-text through Google, but the full-
citations are, and you can use those to find full-text through your
school's library, which is all part of the research process.
Resources for Online A look at some of the practical strategies and techniques online
Online Teaching is instructors can use to foster community in their courses. How it is
Instructors Community similar to/different from other types of online community building
Building currently talking place with social media. Also providing examples of
communities of online instructors that readers may be interested in
joining.
14. Write Posts: Use Writing
prompts.
Opinions
Reviews Keep your
Instructional/How-to antenna up!
Resource Collections (ideas are
Series everywhere…)
Lists
Problem-Solution Write *all* of your
Interviews ideas down.
…
16. Find Your Crowd: Search blog
directories.
New bloggers
Set up a new
Established bloggers
reader (e.g.,
All-star bloggers Feedly)
Read as much as
Look for similar:
you write.
• Topics
• Audiences Leave thoughtful
comments.
18. @billymeinke | billymeinke.wordpress.com
• Read a couple of blogs by people with
similar interests to yours before making
your first post.
• Paying attention [to what others are
doing] can help improve your style and
the readability of your first blog!
19. @stevebragaw
• link, link, link
• write with your audience in mind, even
if it’s just one person
• if your audience is everybody, you’re
talking to nobody
• don’t be that guy on the corner
@hjarche
• realize the benefits – think & reflect,
collaborate, expand your view, ask & engage
22. Dance! (Write!)
• Set goals for blog purpose, frequency, topic(s)
• Write your About Page
• Write an introductory post
• Create 3-5 writing topic categories
• Develop 3-5 post ideas for each category
• Schedule 10 new posts
• Start writing…
• Have fun with it.
Join a blogging group
Organize your blog reading approach
Create a place to collect blogging tips and resources
So you spent the morning getting set up with your WordPress sites and accounts. This is exciting! You’ve decided to blog…… what’s next? Where do you start? That’s where I hope to come in this afternoon.I currently work full time as a blogger, but I started blogging in 2008, when I set up my first WordPress.com blog as a requirement for participation in a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC), but it really started to take off in 2009 when I needed a creative outlet and a way to represent myself as an independent professional in the field of instructional design and higher education. That blog, now called "Design Doc," is still running today, and helped me get my current job. Blogging for me was a perfect combination of technology and education. Who knows where it will lead next? Your adventure is just beginning! The resources and advice I am about to cover are from my perspective, lessoslearnes, and part of my onging crusade to convince everyone to consider giving blogging a try. My guess is that you have something to say, to share, to …. I currently encourage use of blogging and social media in higher education where blogs a re groing in popularlity as part of course assignments and also to demonstrate career portfolios…. Begin at the beginning and go on till you come to the end: then stop. Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Said by the King to the White RabbitEnglish author & recreational mathematician (1832 - 1898)
What it does…
How it looks
No real rules Whatever you want it to be…. Which can be a daunting number of infinite possibilities…. Let’s try to narrow it down a bit:GoalsVoice Organizing your writingCommunity Chart course and direction…..
Profile writing exercise?
“But I don’t know what to write about?
Example Categories and Ideas
Example Editorial CalendarWP Editorial Calendar plug-in Templates out there - simple or as complex as you want it to be – use something you are already using – excel, calendar system, planner…Two very important decisions taken care of at the beginning of each month:What?When?Of course changeable, this is your blpg, but gives you a starting point.
Flowchart on left
According to Technocrati’s State of the Blogosphere Report for 2011 – there are …….### blogs out there. Young, OldNear, FarLike you, to nothing like youWatch what they do… take notes about what you like and don’t like. You can “try this at home” but give it your spin, with your voice and with your goals and audience in mind.
Once you’ve found “your people” – and you will know they’re your people when they resppnd to you, they get what you are saying, and welcome you to the party. In my experience this can’t be forced. When it happens, though…. Things take off. When you find a blog that speaks to you – look a little deeper – who is commenting on the blog? Do they have blogs as well? Are they using G+, Twitter, etc…listen in over there, too. Join blogging groups on LinkedIn…
Speaking of crowd – I reached out to my network via Twitter and G+ earlier this week and asked those who blog to provide their best piece of advice for someone starting his or her first blog this week… and here’s some of that feedback…@elearningguy, toronto, instructional designerExample of finding a suppoertive crowd and building your blog network.
Instructional designer and a grad student at the University of Hawaii
Steve Bragaw – political science professor and blogger
You are part of the WP Community now --- the questions (hopefully) will never end. There will always be more to write about, and new things to try with your site. Keep learningMore sessions coming up today and tomorrow – SEO, Copyright, Plug ins, etc. So much more to learn about – adding images, crafting titles, …. The process continues.
You’re at the dance, all that’s left to do is dance…..
Take aways from this session
Blog address and screenshotAs part of my pitch for this session, I promised “access to a collection of resources” so….. I created a blog. (any excuse, really.) and I want to learn more about Wordpress as a content Management System, so… why not start here?Upcoming presentations – this spring./summer….
KEEP UP with YOUR goals --revisit frequentlyupdate as neededQuestions??
![Begin at the
Beginning
and [Blog] On:
Practical Advice for the
New Blogger
@Melissa_Venable
WordCamp Miami
2012
#wcmia](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/blogon-wcmia2012-mvenable-120215155642-phpapp02/85/begin-at-the-beginning-and-blog-on-1-320.jpg)
