Who knew?

Truly had no clue when I started this that there was so much to read, see, learn, and do in the blogosphere. Even my goals seem diminshed by the quantity of of information that is available on topics that of interest to me.

I thought of a folk song I heard years ago with lyrics focused on the hard time women have in life cooking, cleaning, ironing, etc.. Many versions of the lyrics to the Housewife's Lament are all over the web, but could not find out who authored the Housewife's Lament. Here is part of the lament:

Last night in my dreams I was stationed forever
On a far little rock in the midst of the sea
My one chance of life was a ceaseless endeavor
To sweep off the waves as they swept over me
Alas! 'Twas no dream; ahead I behold it
I see I am helpless my fate to avert
She lay down her broom, her apron she folded
She lay down and died and was buried in dirt.

While it used to be that I just thought about the irony of the last statement in terms of keeping my living space clean, now the words hit home in a new way because of the waves of technology and information seem to get bigger and bigger and the need to keep up-to-date seems to grow exponentially.

Am thinking I will easily find 25 women bloggers writing on topics of interest to me before the year is out. May well need to beef up the numbers and revise the goal statement over the course of the next few months. On the plus side, found good resources on WomenGamers and enjoyed a quick read of The kids are alright: How the gamer generation is changing the world.

Framing this Blog and Related Writing

I had fun this first month of blogging and as a I slogged and poked around the web I learned a few things about blogging I already knew and much about blogging that I hadn't a clue!

Because I have a purpose of finding women blogging about education technology, higher education, and leadership and in answering my question about where the women bloggers are.I decided to frame this blog and the related writings in a goal setting exercise using 5 tips found today in Enterprising Women magazine. Beller (2005) wrote:

1. Having a vision is important to goal setting.

2. Writing a plan to achieve goals is needed.

3. Sharing your goals with others will keep you accountable.

4. Letting go of the outcome and trusting yourself along the way helps.

5. Enjoying one’s journey toward achieving goals and related successes is the best!

ProEdPortal Blog Goals

Vision: My vision is to learn more about a new (to me) writing medium and to connect with bloggers interested in some of the same topics that I am interested in.

Purpose: To engage in writing activities and conversations that fuel ideas for articles, writings, musings, and that help me learn new skills.

Goals: Shared goals to promote my own accountability

1. Blog for one year.

2. Create and post at least 3 blog postings per month.

a. At least one of the postings should connect to leadership.

3. Stay connected to set blog topics, e.g., reflecting on and posting my thoughts and opinions on technology, higher education, and leadership.

4. Find at least 25 women bloggers who blog on similar topics and link them to ProEdPortal.

5. Connect blogging to at least 3 professional development activities over the course of the next 12 months.

a. Conference presentation

b. Submit a paper to a journal

c. Host a webinar

6. At the end of one year reflect, summarize year’s activities in the blog, and decide whether to continue.

Outcomes and the Journey: An Action Research Project that will unfold as the year goes by.

Reading Danah Boyd Writings on Blogs

A newbie and a latecomer to this whole blog thing am wanting to read and find out about other women who blog and have interests similar to mine. One of the most interesting and prolific women bloggers I am reading is Danah Boyd --apophenia. Boyd has been a blogger for a longtime and has massive archives and links out to other blogs and bloggers. Can only admire and be awe of all the blogging and article writing she does while enrolled as a Ph.D. student at Berkley!

A few things she writes about blogging are relevant to why I decided to experiment with blogging, for example:

1.I see blogging as way to be engaged with a community of people with like interests and can recognize the "social aspects of blogging"(Boyd, 2006).

2. In a way feel like this is Action Research, as I walk through producing
"semi-regular expressions" under what Boyd, calls a "digital roof".

3. Each new post is connected to my self-assigned readings as I explore this medium. Not sure yet how they all connect. In some respects this is just freewriting and eventually I will need to reflect and respond not only to my readings, but will need to capture my thoughts about all as this blogging stuff and to figure out what it all means. Does this mean I am "blogging to the blog itself"?


On a separate, but related topic as a parent of young adults (20-somethings), her musings and articles have helped me understand facebooking & myspacing a little better. Did not reduce all my concerns :-), but did put them in perspective. Her list of her articles, publications, presentations on topics related to this medium is well worth a bookmark.

Just looking around,did you know there is a blog born every second?

Through GeekyMom found a higher education site and an article titled, A lesson in video viral. Basically a fun to read story about a faculty person who created a 5-minute video clip for YouTube and forwarded it to some friends, who forwarded to friends,then a blogger posted the video and it was viewed by 806,077 people within just a few days. Soon folks are calling this video a "must-see video for anyone wanting to understand the hottest features of the Web". In Wesch’s piece, “The Machine is Us/ing Us,” The nonlinear quality of digital text is outlined in a fun, simple, innovative and highly visual manner. If you have not viewed it, you can by clicking on this link to Web 2.0 ... The Machine is Us/ing Us.