After meeting with some journalism students recently, I was asked how I got into blogging. Then, serendipitiously enough, I ran across this post by Andy Roberts at Distributed Research prompting readers with "What's Your Blog Story?" As such, I present an abbreviated account of my blog story for those so interested.
Personal Journaling
I started a blog in 2003 while working as a distance learning administrator at my uni. I was enrolled in graduate school part-time and noticed a continual fuss in the media over blogs, bloggers, blogging. Being curious, I started a weblog and wrote about anything I could think of: education, technology, music, pop culture, social media, e-learning, what I had for lunch. After throwing myself into this personal journal for about two months, I threw in the towel. While I was engaged in a high level of self learning and self-reflection about social media and elearning, I wasn't receiving any other human contact. I found I desired conversations and connections to others who shared these interests. I wasn't looking for people who simply agreed with me. I wanted to connect with others passionate about their thoughts, feelings, vocations, and avocations, who also enjoyed writing about them.
Elgg
After stumbling onto sites by Barbara Ganley, Will Richardson, Josie Fraser and George Siemens via Stephen Downes' OLDaily, I decided to follow one of Stephen's leads that discussed an open social networking community of educators called Elgg (now Eduspaces). I created an account, focused my writing on teaching, learning, and computing, and then I found myself engaging in potent conversations with other educators from around the globe. I became "hooked." On Elgg, I was able to connect and reflect with a growing network of educators and educational technologists who became a critical support and feedback network whose comments and posts broadened and influenced my understanding of the ways technology could enhance the way we think, feel, live, educate, and influence others.
Public Scholarship
As I continued my graduate studies as a part-time student, I found myself handing in assignments on my weblog, directing instructors to my weblog, and creating community blog sites for my classes. I found I could work through a number of complex issues and receive valuable feedback on my weblog. Some of my professors got it, some didn't. With the help of Bill Fitzgerald, I went on to create a pilot study using a community blog site to support a network of geographically separated teachers in a professional development program. This study then became a full fledged research project that will be published as a formal dissertation in the coming months. 
I write to think.
My weblog serves as a medium that allows me to take the rumblings and problems in my head and make them concrete and more serviceable. As a teacher educator and educational technologist, I found weblogging a powerful means of fostering metacognition, critical reflection, community, knowledge building, and thought-to-action. Through weblogging I could demonstrate to other educators the ways in which critical thinking led to know for my practice, knowledge in my practice, and knowledge of my practice. Weblogging permitted me the chance to translate new strategies, new ways of thinking and doing, into practice: I could go from reading and reflecting about the use of weblogs and social media, to engaging in research on these same topics.
Next steps
I have since infused my blogging practice with a number of other applications including Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr. I continue to blog in a conventional manner, but not quite as often as I used to. In the coming months I will be building another content management site that I will use for more professional/consulting purposes. I am looking forward to conducting more research with colleagues around the globe and publishing my findings both online, at conferences, and in conventional academic journals.
So what's your blog story?
So what's your story, morning glory? This is a wonderful writing topic and a great way to capture your thoughts for your next interview, no?
Images:
The Replacements album cover: http://image.maniadb.com/images/album/183/183093_1_f.jpg
Etsy t-shirt: http://ny-image0.etsy.com/il_430xN.55063504.jpg
Keywords: Andy Roberts, Barbara Ganley, Ben Werdmuller, bloggers, blogging, blogs, computing, Dave Tosh, educational technology, Eduspaces, elearning, Elgg, Facebook, George Siemens, learning, reflection, scholarship, social media, Stephen Downes, teaching, Tumblr, Twitter, Will Richardson
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