Tag Archives: blogging

On what I’ve learnt in 6 months…

LearnerBlogger, LearnerMother, , , ,

Six months today since I took my iPad to my biggest boy’s climbing session, holed up in a corner of the cafe, and set up LearnerMother on a WordPress site. I’d blogged before in a work capacity, but never anything personal, and I really didn’t know how it would pan out, whether I’d enjoy it, whether it’d be even feasible to write regularly given that free time just doesn’t happen to me. But here I am, six months on, which seems a good point to take stock of what I’ve learnt and to think about where I want LearnerMother to go from here.

Here’s my blogging observations…

  • First and foremost, people are incredibly generous with their help. I’ve asked the most basic questions on Twitter, sometimes several times in a row because I didn’t understand the answers the first time, and someone has always taken the time to help me. When I decided to go self-hosted, I ended up in a real pickle, but people were so quick to reassure and advise that the process was much less stressful than it could have been. I hope that I’ll be able to repay the favour, just as soon as I know the difference between DNS and URL. Or perhaps I should stick to offering help of a less technical nature, in case I end up collapsing the internets. In any case – THANK YOU if you were one of the many folk to help me!
  • I don’t write about our family activities as much as I thought I would. This is because I can’t imagine anyone being interested in them – however one of the reasons I started blogging was to provide a shared memory bank for our kids in future years. I also quite enjoy reading about other families’ activities as it gives me ideas for what to do with the kids, so the lack of family posts is something I’m going to rectify over the next six months – please don’t feel obliged to read if you don’t want to!
  • I’m not sure how my kids will feel about the blog as they get older, or whether it’s even fair to be blogging about them at that point. I guess it’s something I need to review on an ongoing basis.
  • Being an ‘out’ (ie not anonymous) blogger comes with responsibilities. Several posts have been discarded half way through writing because, although they are amusing/worthy of comment, the adults or kids featuring in them could potentially be identifiable within our local community. Not that the posts are necessarily negative, but I figure it’s my responsibility to err on the side of caution. If anyone feels that I have overstepped the line, it goes without saying to call me out on it.
  • Being an ‘out’ blogger is definitely not as therapeutic as being anonymous would be!
  • I think I need to be a bit braver in writing about stuff that matters to me. I have held my tongue on my (extremely ranty) thoughts on certain issues, from religion to second home ownership, because I am wary of offending friends and family, who make up a fair chunk of my readers. Which is a bit daft really, since if I was sitting opposite them with a beer I’d most likely feel comfortable in disagreeing with them and leaving the pub still friends. I am going to try and have the courage of my convictions from now on.
  • Stats are great, and it is nice when a post gets retweeted and shared, and generates discussion. But when I’m thinking that I need to write a post on holiday so that I keep my page views up, then I’m taking myself and my blog too seriously.
  • There are too many great blogs out there to keep up with them all; I have to limit myself to my favourites or I’d never get off the computer. In no particular order, hese are the ones I read without fail: Mummy Never Sleeps, Premmeditations, Living with MND, Dr Kate Granger, Be Brave and Look Up, Mumblings on the Verge, Ojo’s World, Free Falling into 40, My Daft Life, Motherventing, MammyWoo. An eclectic bunch – check them out if you haven’t already -they all make excellent reading.
  • I have a long way to go to write well. It’s (whisper it) eighteen years since I wrote anything for academic purposes, and although I like to think I was good with words back then, it’s going to take me some practice to get back into writing to a decent standard. Reading through old posts, I overuse certain words and phrases, I drift away from my point, and sometimes it is horribly obvious that I’ve wrapped up and hit the publish button because I’m being overtaken by sleep, rather than because I have finished what I want to say.
  • But – I have rediscovered that I love to write, even more than I knew. It doesn’t matter what the subject matter is – I find the process of starting with an idea, and creating a post around it, incredibly satisfying. So I’m going to use the next year to try and work out how I might be able to integrate this into my – ahem – portfolio career. Any pointers gratefully received!

So there you have it – that’s what I’ve learnt in 6 months. Enough to know that LearnerMother is well worth the effort, for me at least – you may disagree! In any case, thank you for bearing with me as I’ve mumbled and bumbled on…and hope you’ll come back for more!

 

 

 

 

 

On teachers

School, , ,

When I was looking for info about spelling apps a few months ago, someone on Twitter suggested I follow a teacher friend of theirs, who might be able to help; and sure enough, she gave me some great suggestions. Since then, I’ve also been following how she integrates blogging into teaching with her Year 4 class. (That’s one of the things I love about Twitter – it gives me a whole lot of windows onto things I’d never have thought about).

I was idly scrolling through my twitter feed whilst waiting for no.1 son to finish his swimming lesson, and saw a tweet inviting comments on the pupils posts (they love getting comments from readers of their blog – but then don’t we all!) They’d been shown the cover of a book – The Rabbits, by John Marsden – and they’d been asked to write their predictions for what the story might be about, based on the images on the cover. So I headed to the blog, meaning to comment on a couple of the kids posts, and did so. But then I saw some of the kids hadn’t had any comments at all, so I thought I would comment on those too, and then I felt kind of mean not commenting on everyone’s posts, so I ended up commenting on all 22 of them.

It’s taken me ages! I wanted to find something different to say about each post, as they deserved – the kids had obviously worked really hard and some of the descriptions they gave were AMAZING – but by the time I got half way through I was running out of inspiration, and not because the kids work wasn’t great – it was! But treating each post as individually as it deserved was not as easy as I’d thought, and I found myself thinking about how hard it would be to maintain this level of enthusiasm if I was having to actually mark work every night, or even just a couple of times a week.

I’ve heard plenty of sarcy comments about teachers having short days and long holidays, and I’ve never really subscribed to that camp. But equally I have never actually thought about how difficult it must be, every single day, to make every single child in your class feel that their work is special and to give each one the attention they deserve. There must be times when all the projects on the weather, or space travel, or the Romans, just merge into one big blurry mass. They do for me, and only two of my kids get homework at the moment! To be able to teach and motivate a whole class of kids, all with different needs and abilities, and to make each one of them feel like they matter, and to keep that up every day of the term – I don’t reckon I could do that, not in a million years.

So Big Up to all you teachers out there – and thank you!

On being Liebstered!

LearnerBlogger, ,

Wow wow wow. I was going to fire up the laptop tonight to do some work on raising the profile of LearnerMother – I know I’m supposed to do some stuff signing up with a google thingy and also I need to get  my head round the nofollow business, and I also need to install the dropbox plugin to back up my witterings – basically I am SUPPOSED to be doing blogging homework. But then I discovered that I have been nominated for a Liebster, by Lucas over at AbstractLucas!

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I hadn’t heard of the Liebster before so I did some research – it’s a shout out to highlight new blogs which some lovely person thinks are worthy of a profile boost. Yay! That means today’s reader liked my blog! Bonus!

So the way it works is that you have to answer 11 questions set by the lovely blogger that nominated you, reveal 11 random facts about yourself, set another 11 questions and tag 11 other blogs you enjoy. I *think* that’s the deal.

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So here’s the questions set by AbstractLucas…

1- If you HAD to change your name,  what would you change it to and why?

I would change it to Georgina, because I have always wanted to be called George. Too much Famous Five when I was little, I think!

2  – When you were little, what did you want to be when you grew up?

I wanted to be a paediatrician, or a writer. Not enough grey matter for med school; but with a seven week old blog, hey, I’m living the writing dream!

3 – What was the most recent lie you told?

‘There aren’t any biscuits, sweetheart’.’ Because a) they are bad for their little teeth and b) I wanted a supply to see me through my blogging homework. But mostly a.

4 – What did you have for breakfast this morning?

Tea and a marmite roll and tea and tea.

5 – What famous person do you think you would get on really well with, if you happened to meet them (and why)

I would love to go for a pint with Lucy Mangan, because her writing makes me think, makes me laugh and is beautifully crafted without being pretentious.  I think we’d get on well – until I got to the third pint and started carrying on in a slightly drunk and intense fashion about how she is the writer I always wanted to be….

6 –  Have you ever cheated on anything or anyone?

Yes but I am the crappest cheater in the world so I always confess to my misdemeanours!!

7 – If your life was a film, what kind of film would it be and what would it be called?

It would be a pretty boring film to be fair. So it would have to be a short one. Like me. What would it be called? Ummm. I don’t know. Shirty Shorty?

8 –  How many works of Shakespeare can you name (without googling!)

Hamlet, Macbeth, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, the Merchant of Venice, a bunch of sonnets, Much Ado About Nothing, Henry V, Romeo and Juliet, The Tempest, King Lear, Othello, Anthony and Cleopatra, OOOOPS I just cheated. But only for the last two.

9 – What is your favourite line from a film?

What the WHAT? You think I have time for films? I have seen, on average, one film a year for the last seven years. (I am not counting anything Disney, Pixar or Aardman. I’ve seen shedloads of those. More than shedloads). Anyway. TV wise, I am partial to a bit of 30 Rock, and my favourite line from the show is…What the WHAT?

10 – If you suddenly and unexpectedly became President or Prime Minister or {insert superior political / military position here} of your country, what is the very first thing that you would do?

I would make corporation tax mandatory, not optional and dependent on how far up someone’s bottom you are prepared to climb (see UK Uncut Legal for more details). I’d also outlaw any and all donations to political parties and give them all the same amount to campaign with. That last one is my mate’s idea, but it’s a good one, and he doesn’t do blogs, so I’m fairly safe to nick it. Oh and I’d make owning property, except the property you live in, illegal.

11 – What special talent do you have that you think you should be world famous for?

Ha! I was lamenting this only yesterday! I have no special talent at all I am afraid – I’m crap at a lot of things and ok at a lot of things. The only real thing I am known for is GSD – getting shit done. You want something done? Wind me up and watch me go. I just can’t help myself. I’d love to be able to switch that gene off for just a minute, then I wouldn’t be so knackered all the time.

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So – those are my eleven answers. Here’s my eleven random facts…

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1 – My actual name is Michelle Davisova. Because I got married in the Czech Republic, and the way it works there is that you take your husbands name and add an -ova to it. But I think it sounds a bit pretentious so Davis it is.

2 – Property is Theft. I do actually think that. Not owning a home, but owning a second home, or a third, or a bunch. It just sticks in my craw that property prices are so out of the reach of so many people. I think you should take what you need in life, and taking more than one home is just wrong.

3 – I have a twitter crush on @Cmdr_Hadfield. I am totally gutted that he is coming off the International Space Station in 2 weeks and I spend far too much time thinking about how it just won’t be the same, having another astro tweet from space.

4 – I would rather give a presentation to a hundred people, than be put in a room with a hundred people and have to ‘network’.

5 – I thought I’d be a brilliant mum. I’m not.

6 – The job I enjoyed most, ever, was waiting tables in college.

7 – Since I got pregnant with my first child, my tearducts are a bit weird. Like they fill up randomly and unexpectedly. If I am talking about something and get even a little bit animated, my eye fill with tears. It’s embarrassing.

8 – I am absolutely terrified of flying. I do it, but I hate it. There’s a little bit of me that is glad we’re skint, so we can’t afford to go on a plane anywhere. And I’m already worrying about if we ever get not skint, so I’ll have to deal with it.

9 – I sort of regret not making my blog anonymous. Being ‘out’ severely limits the blogging-for-therapy options.

10 – I’m knackered. Always.

11 – I genuinely suspect that I have early-onset Alzheimers. I had to refer to my own daughter as ‘Thingy’ the other day and such occurrences are becoming more common. I’m really hoping it’s just taking me a long time to get over my baby brain. But I’m mentally working round the possibilities and implications for our life if it’s true.

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Now – eleven questions:

1 – Mac or PC?

2 – What’s your favourite joke?

3 – What’s your favourite city and why?

4 – Marmite – love it or hate it?

5 – Are you friends with your exes?

6 – Do you believe in horoscopes?

7 – What would you change about yourself, if you had to pick one thing?

8 – Is your life turning out how you thought, or totally different, or better, or worse? Why?

9 – Is blood thicker than water?

10 – Where’s your heart – city or country?

11 – Have you ever eaten anything you’ve grown?

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Ok. Now the eleven bloggers to pass this on to…here are some of the blogs I’ve really enjoyed over the last few weeks…

Ar Flaen Ei Thafod

Flossing the Cat

Instinctive Mum

misterdoctorbeckymark2

A Year Without Supermarkets

mumblingsontheverge

Delusions of Candour

MummyLaura

Beach Life Etc

Julia’s Place

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Ok. I *think* I have done it right. Except telling those folk who I’ve Liebstered, and that will have to wait till tomorrow because this lady needs her sleep! Thankyou to abstractlucas for nominating me, and goodnight!