We can work IT out

Last week via Twitter rmbyrne invited people to be a guest blogger on his blog “Free Technology For Teachers“.

Being the reckless type, I emailed Richard, gave a link to my blog and said that I’d love to be a guest blogger.

Why would I do that?

Well, I admit it, I wanted the exposure that his blog could provide. But, I also wanted a challenge.

Richard replied that I could do a post on Wednesday.

Now, late wednesday evening in Adelaide is early morning wednesday in the USA. Wednesday arrives and at about 8pm I go for my regular run through the parkland around the city. It’s hot, so I waited til dusk to go and the whole time by mind is thinking ‘what shall I write about?’ That afternoon I had run a PD session for the management team about Web2.0. It had gone really well, and I thought, I might write about that.

I have been noticing that since school has been back that my ability to keep up with all my social-networking tools has decreased. These now remind me of what my email inbox used to look like. I considered writing a post about that.

I have been using Edmodo for a few weeks and I considered writing a post about how things were going there. I had also suggested to Richard that I might write about clayanimation. He liked that idea, and I really liked that he liked it. But, I hadn’t really done much recently with these tools and while I had ideas and could talk about it, I wasn’t really up-to-date with software changes.

Fifty minutes later and back at home, I have another look at Richard’s blog to remind myself of the types of posts he normally has. They seemed to be useful, with examples on applications in education. It was then a choice between Edmodo and Animation, and I chose edmodo, only because it was more recent and therefore fresh in my mind.

A quick shower and then I blogged. It was after 11pm when I had finished. It took 2 hours to write my guest post.

Now that it’s over, I can reflect on the process.

I was so excited to be offered a guest blogspot. While it is just one post (wel, one post each from a number of us), I think Richard was very generous to do this. He has built up a following and could easily losse readership, if the posts were not what readers were expecting. As well, it’s a brilliant idea, as it does keep your blog active while you are away and it exposes the regulars to a different voice for a while. It provides opportunity for the guest blogger and the reader.

In the hours leading up to writing my post and while I was writing it, I experienced the typical “why did I say I wanted to do this?” thinking. That voice nagged and nagged until after I was done, and has only just stopped now, that I have read Richard’s post thanking his guest bloggers.

Would I do it again? – you bet!

I’d also like to offer guest spots on this blog. (Not yet, but I can certainly see it happening in the not too distant future.)

Finally, a huge thank you to Richard. You have certainly assisted me in my blogging journey!

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