Betty’s Bytes

Blogging has become so common that it is nearly impossible to keep up with the blogs that may pique your interest. I subscribe to RSS feeds of some of those that interest me, and yet I still have difficulty reading all the few subscriptions. On the whole, I try to keep up with ITRT blogs and news feeds, but that is impossible. There are just too many sources of information to begin to read them all, so I just pick and choose and few, occasionally adding a new source.

This week I am presenting blogging to the Library Media Specialists in Virginia Beach. My goal is to cover the basics in 2 hours and have each participant leave with a “work in progress.” As I reviewed the procedure for establishing a blog, I was reminded that it takes very little to actually have a blog up and running; other technical people have done most of the work. Basically, you need to sign up, sign in, make a title and post your first article. VOILA! You have a blog!

Reviewing the procedure over the course of the last two weeks, I am reminded that there are many links on a blog that seem very similar and some that you really do not need to use or even visit on a regular basis. It is, however, fun to make the blog your own – adding pictures, backgrounds, Voki’s, and widgets. With time, we’ll explore some of what makes each blog unique.

As the Internet continues to expand exponentially and the school division demands more and more from us as educators to engage our students using technology, time becomes a more cherished gift. Can you research, interact, and blog too much? Do you spend too much time on myspace, Facebook, Twitter, or some other social site? Do you find it difficult to try to read just the sites that you have tagged for their interests? Is your mailbox filled to overflowing with interesting information? Do you have to keep a list of your blogs, your logins, and your passwords just to remember what you have agreed to maintain?

All of these questions came to mind this morning, as I logged onto the computer to update my personal blog and realized that I have too many blogs to maintain.  This blog Betty’s Bytes is important as it provides a venue for me to share some of the ordinary and extraordinary things that I learn with my co-workers and friends in education. My personal blog is my journal and vital to sharing my life with my family and a few close friends. Through the years I have created several technology in education blogs, and for some reason I am reluctant to delete them even though I do not use them any longer — they seem somehow to mark an historical trail of how I got to where I am today. I have also created a blog for my son’s friends, who were traveling the world with the musician Jack Johnson as his nannies, a blog for my high school class after a mini reunion in Rockbridge County, and a variety of VBCA CRS blogs, wikis, and podcasting sites such as the VBCA Student for podcasting and Do You Believe in Me for publishing student writings. All of the sites that I use are free except for one personal domain that I use for personal links and email. Now, I am blogging on yet another free site, the one provided by the school division for us to use for instruction; my site is Technology & the alternative student, a reflection on what I am doing at work.

I have too many blog and wiki sites, so my next job is to evaluate what is really important, what I must keep and maintain, what I must keep for historical purposes, and what must be deleted. The time has come where teachers will create and maintain their own blogs, so there is no need for me to have quite so many — although, as I reflect on what this is all about, I am reminded that I must maintain a blog and a wiki for training purposes, as well — so there are two more sites that I cannot delete just yet.