Down Blog’s Memory Lane…An interview with my blog

Wordle word cloud for my blog

My blog's word cloud


Reporter: When did you start blogging?
Gadgetgurl: This particular blog has been in existence for a little over 2 years although I’ve had other blogs (and hosts) since 2007.

Reporter: Why did you start blogging?
Gadgetgurl: I first started blogging because it was a requirement for university study.  I completed a Master of Information Technology in Education at The University of Melbourne in 2009.  It turned out that all of the papers for this degree involved blogging in some form or another.

Reporter: Would you have started blogging if you had not studied for your Masters degree?
Gadgetgurl: Hmmmm.  I’d have to save that back in 2007 I probably wouldn’t have started a blog on my own.  A lot has changed in 4 years though, so I think I would have been a blogger by now even if it wasn’t for my Masters study.

Reporter: Given that you’ve completed your Masters, how has this impacted the purpose of your blog?
Gadgetgurl: I guess the main purpose of my blog is to document my thoughts and experiences in using technology with high school students.  http://gadgetgurl.edublogs.org is a educational / professional blog rather than a personal one – you’re not going to be seeing holiday snaps or my thoughts on politics here!  The title of my blog, Flexible Learning Environments, is actually the name of one of my university papers.  I’ve chosen to keep it as the title because my interests align with this sentiment anyway.  The Masters may have ended, but the learning certainly has not! :)  When studying, my posts reflected the progress of the course, whereas now my posts are determined more by my current interests, what’s in the news technology-wise, and what I’m doing (or working towards) in related to my work as an ICT / Computing teacher.

Reporter: Does that mean you’re naturally inclined towards blogging?
Gadgetgurl: Ha, absolutely not!

Reporter: What do you mean by that?
Gadgetgurl: Well, I’ve never been one for writing diary entries or anything like that, so while I enjoy writing (if I’ve got something to say that is!), making posts is still something that I have to work at.

Reporter: What’s the most challenging thing you’ve faced with blogging?
Gadgetgurl: I guess my main weakness is in terms of the regularity (or lack thereof!) of writing posts.  I can go for an entire school term, or even several terms, without posting anything.  I guess that doesn’t encourage people to follow my blog as a result and it’s something I need to try and improve.

Reporter: How do you find the technical aspects of setting up and maintaining a blog?
Gadgetgurl: I’m very comfortable in this area.  I’m not inclined to read a manual first, so I’m happy to dive in behind the scenes and just see what happens.  The only problems I’ve had relate to plugins and widgets that were more involved as they don’t always come with an intuitive interface.  In such cases I search the Edublogs forums and/or send an email detailing the issue – there’s great support here! :)

Reporter: What advice could you offer a beginning blogger?
Gadgetgurl: Hmmm….

  • Try and add some customisation to your theme when you first start.  Little things like adding a title and tagline, perhaps the colour scheme or style of font (if your theme allows this) and a couple of basic widgets will give you a sense of ownership even before you write your first post.
  • Add an ‘About’ page.  Tell potential readers about yourself.  E.g. are you a primary, secondary or tertiary educator?  What are your general interests?
  • Shorter posts are fine.  I think one of the reasons my post rate is not high at the moment is because I have a tendency to write mini essays for each post.  That takes time; something which I often don’t have, especially during term.  One of my goals this term is to try and write at least one post each week even if that post is only a paragraph reflecting on a technology story that has been in the news that week.

Reporter: Finally, what was your last post about?
Gadgetgurl: My last post contained my thoughts about why the iPad doesn’t need a USB port.  This came about after hearing and reading a lot of comments in the media and online about people lamenting the fact that this isn’t a feature in the iPad.  After using one for the past 6 months, I realised that (a) the iPad operating system doesn’t treat files in the same way as Windows or Mac OSX and (b) as a result, file management relies on apps, not hardware or the operating system.  If you’re interested in reading it, my post is here: http://gadgetgurl.edublogs.org/2011/01/04/why-the-ipad-doesnt-need-a-usb-port/
The Wordle word cloud at the top of this post is taken from my entire ‘Flexible Learning Environments’ blog.   I know one of my current interests is mobile learning with devices like the iPad etc, but I didn’t realise how much this was gleaned from my blog as well until I created the Wordle! :)