Thanks a lot for posting that comment on my blog. It's kinda nice to know that people do actually read it once in a while. I thought that the above post was very true. I love blogging, but I only really found out about it after my first of two years in Mr. Fishers class. People need the chance to find out about different things when they are still young. If they don't, they won't have any motivation to do anything about it when they are old and grumpy.

-Thanks for listening

Very helpful to hear your thoughts on blogging and learning. The fire never dies. The most powerful comment for me was when you spoke about why you decided to ask your students to blog. “I found such value in it that I figured that students would get a value from blogging as well.” Your passion for learning through writing on your blog shared with students. I can't help but think the experience ignited something important in your students.

Thanks for sharing this.

Dennis

As a teacher, it is becoming increasingly hard to determine where lines should be drawn to distinguish the reliability, usability and validity of web sources, including blogs.

As a writer I have a desire to be paid and recognised for writing. Will blogging lead me there or take me away from it?

Amalia,
I remember when excerpts from this post http://pairadimes.davidtruss.com/developing-empathy/ were published in a textbook about ‘Heroes and Idols’. I had such a sense of accomplishment for being ‘published’, although I’d already been ‘published’ on my blog for almost 3 years at the time. I shared my pride in being paper-published on Twitter where one of my wise friends said, “…But your words have always been published, so what if now it is on paper?”
That kind of burst my ‘paper = published’ view. The fact is that I’ve had no feedback what-so-ever on my paper article, but I get feedback, questions, and interaction with my readers here. My articles stay ‘alive’ on my blog with google often pointing the way to articles that I wrote many moons ago.
But I still love that my article was chosen for print in a textbook and I love that students who would never go to my blog get to read my work. I still love print, (even if most books that I read now are not in digital format).
At BLC08 Keynote speaker John Davitt http://novemberlearning.com/blc/main-sessions/john-davitt/ asked and answered this question about digital vs the print world: “Which world do I want to live in? Well, the answer is both!”
So, it isn’t an either/or thing, just a new place for you to share your writing, and I for one will enjoy reading your blog when you get it started.

Donna,
Glad you can use some of what I shared here, this affirms what I just said to Amalia… I hope your workshop goes well and I’m glad I could help in a small way!
Dave.

But I see now how completely a writer’s process can be enriched by sharing and learning from others in this environment. As I write this response, I’m seeing how much my drive for print is ego-motivated, and it causes me to ask, “What do I really want my words to achieve?” If I dig through all the ego junk and get to the heart of my desire to write, it is that I may share something that will touch others, and will reflect to them their own nobility.

And this is from an online editor, would you believe…?!

You have me thinking — love how you talk about it in terms of your learning space which sounds better then your PLN or your PLE. Wondering if others have used ‘learning space’ before?