I have found myself asking this question lately. During my reflections at the end of 2016 I considered the fact that I had written almost a blog entry at least once per week throughout the year as well as on every day in February. At times I had found identifying a subject difficult and at other times I had found identifying time to actually write something difficult. I also had periods during which my motivation towards blogging was not at it highest, yet still I persisted and tried to get something written down and shared.
Recently I have finished reading Essentialism by Greg McKeown which has got me thinking about which tasks and activities I undertaken which are essential and which are not. This has got me thinking about the effort I put into blogging. Is blogged essential to me? In trying to answer this it has got me thinking about my reasons for blogging.
Thinking about it there are a number of reasons which I blog. One relates to memory. My reading over the last year has highlighted the limitations of memory. We often believe that our memory represents an accurate, video like, record of previous events however this is far from the truth. As such blogging, writing down my thoughts, feelings and the details of specific events, helps in creating a more accurate record of events which I can review at some point in the future. As such my blog represents a way to help me check that memories I hold actually represent the events I believe they relate to.
Blogging is also a way to offload. The act of getting things down in a blog article forces me to order my thoughts. It forces me to question my perspective. I have found on a number of occasions that the act of blogging has resulted in my re-examining my perspective.
Writing a blog is an act of contribution to the education domain which exists online. I have often found this domain to be very useful, finding ideas, perspectives and resources which I have either been able to use, or which have helped in shaping my thinking. I could just have remained a consumer of resources and ideas however if we all did this then the educational domain would be lesser for it, as there would be far fewer contributors. As such my blog is just one part of my attempt to pay back the online education domain which has helped me so much. I admit there may be no-one or few people that ever read that which I have written, however if there is even 1 person who has found my musings to be useful, then at least in part I have repaid the help I have received from educators online.
Having given it some thought, maybe blogging isn’t top of my essentials list however I do think it is important. I think the key here is maybe that my essentials list may focus too much on the here and now, however blogging may prove to have been a productive activity only when I find myself reviewing my thoughts some years from now.
As it stands, I will try to continue to find the time to blog, so here’s to many more posts throughout 2017.
Technology and Learning
[ Smiles ] Okay, those are fair enough reasons to blog.
And, by the way, please continue to blog!
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Thanks. Am going to keep at it for now and review as 2017 progresses.
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