Let’s be honest I need all the help I can get. My weight has crept up . And like all woman I don’t like to feel fat! Thankfully I’ve got great friends in Christy Tucker and Christine Martell that decided to help me with my weight problem.
Apparently the weight issues happened during my blog cleaning when I changed my blog image header. (Sheesh and I thought cleaning helped you lose weight!).
Does it seem like the header image leads your image off the right side of the page though? Look at the line of the rocks and the direction the person is facing–it seems to all be pointing off to the right. I wonder if you flipped the image horizontally if it would work better. You’d have to move the text somewhere else, perhaps, but with the image flipped it would draw your eye right down to the content.
Just a thought–you might want to check with Christine Martell or someone else more visually inclined. It’s possible I’m simply imagining things!
Christine’s definitely the person to ask as she’s amazing with visuals. And I’m extremely grateful because she has done an incredible analysis of my new image header while explaining all visual aspects of what the image was saying, the messages it sends the readers and options to improve.
Make the time to read Chrisine’s Does my header make my blog look fat? post (and leave her a comment thanking her for helping me)! There is so much to appreciate when using visuals on blog sites and in posts; Christine’s excellent at making you consider the issues.
Impact of Images and Photos in Blog Posts
Images and photos enhance blog posts when used correctly but can have the opposite affect when used badly. These posts Christine wrote are must reads for understanding the issues better:
Also make sure you check out Gary Barber’s excellent post on the Psychology of Colour. Fantastic post that explains the different emotions invoked by various colours.
My Solution To The Weight Problem
Well I decided to change my image header based on her re-design of my image however Bret Treasure has made excellent comments (read his comments as he makes really good points) on Christine’s post about the image I’ve chosen isn’t relevant to the blog content or engaging. So it may be a case the issue continues to be debated as the weight issue may not be solved
Thanks everyone who has been trying to help me with my weight problem and my blog makeover. I really appreciate your help.
Don’t you get frustrated with mess? I do! But I’ll procrastinate how I can clean up the mess until I can’t take it anymore. Only then will I take action.
Today was my blog cleaning day! I’ve finished what I can but still not happy (are we ever totally happy with blog cleaning?). Anyway let me show you what I’ve done so you can give me your thoughts
Importance Of Blog Cleaning
Unfortunate fact of life, we do judge a book by it’s cover! People are more likely to both read our posts and subscribe to our blog if it’s pleasing to their eyes.
We need our blogs to immediately engage first time readers, highlight that we offer great information that they will like, so they want to subscribe to our blog.
I use Cutline theme for my blog because I want a clean template, with pages along the top and ability to add a tagline.
The concept behind a blog tagline is to create a memorable phrase that sums up the tone and premise of a blog. Ideally all blogs should have a tagline since they instantly tell first time readers what your blogs all about and whether you write posts in topic areas that interest them.
Unfortunately Cutline doesn’t include a tagline but it does include a customisable header which means I can add the tagline to the image in my blog header.
But I’m not the most creative person so wasn’t happy with my image. Hoping my new image header with a person staring at the ocean and my tagline Helping Others With Web 2.0, e-learning and m-learning are better.
This is what my previous header looked like:
Decluttered My Sidebar
Sidebar clutter is bad because it can make your blog look messy and pulls readers attention away from what you want them to do (read your posts)!
I sort of view sidebar widgets as being partly for the blog owner and partly for their readers. So I guess if they make you happy then that’s what counts. I don’t see them as distracting, but then I’m a total global spatial and my mind is probably full of widgets.
But some of the clutter had to go!
1. Removed my blogroll
Bloggers often feature a list of their favourite blogs in the sidebar of their blog; this list is commonly called a blogroll and these are important to edubloggers. One of the reasons for adding a blogroll is so your readers can use this list to locate other blogs worth reading — you are saying “these are some blogs I like - which are worth checking out!”
Trouble is my blogroll list overwhelms my side bar so I’ve relocated it to a page on my blog. Sure some won’t be happy with this but it was that or no blogroll. And now have a pretty link to it
I’ve added a Google translator widget to my blog to make it easier to read my posts in words other than English as I have many readers that English is not their main language.
I also tried to find an Aussie slang translator but had no success. My readers definitely need this! As Kate Quinn pointed out in comments I used this aussie slang “main drag to refer to the main road through the town” in a post.
I’ve changed the heading of my categories widget to “Some of the things I write about” because I felt the word Categories didn’t have much meaning to many of my readers.
As a blog surfing addict I like the cocoment reader widget - if something you have commented on else where catches my attention then I can follow it and explore further. I also know can come back to your site and follow other comments of interest - so I like that widget
So I’ve adjusted the size of the widget and changed my cocomment widget’s title to “My Comments on Others Blogs.”
6. Where I Share
I wanted to add a Show Yourself Widget like Vicki Davis has on her blog (located in her left sidebar under the title of “Where I Share”). Unfortunately this is one code I can’t seem to embed in this blog. So instead I’ve added an About Me Widget from MyBlogLog but it’s not really what I wanted.
If you know of a better widget please let me know
Added A Visitors Map
While I was busy decluttering my sidebar I couldn’t help looking at more widget to add.
I fell in love with Ronaldo Lima Frappr visitor’s map and had to have one. Absolutely no logic in my desire and since it caused clutter I’ve added it to my About page — which makes completely no sense!
Meeting people who you network with online for the first time face to face is always an amazing moment because your mind has created a mental picture of them based on your interactions. Unfortunately the online identity you develop for yourself and how it appears to you may not match what your online friends expect when they meet you, f2f, in real life.
Take for example KerryJ (who I had the great pleasure of meeting this week for dinner with Kathyrn Greenhill). KerryJ and I’ve been networking online for awhile, both share a wicked (evil) sense of humour.
Let me say I’m glad KerryJ told me this (& thanks KerreJ for letting me tell the story) — but apparently my photo avatar is making me look OLD. She pictured me a a much older looking person compared to the person standing in front of her. Now with my birthday tomorrow there is no way I want to look my AGE. She said in person I looked in my 30’s (which many people take me for) but my photo avatar makes me look in my 40’s (which unfortunately I am).
So here’s the offending picture:
I liked it because to be honest there are not many photos of me because I’m one of those people whose photos turn out like crap. And at least the photo looked okay.
This was my previous photo which I liked but felt made me look too bland:
Here’s what I looked like at dinner:
Developing Your Online Identity
Developing our own unique identity is an important part of being online which we don’t always appreciate when we first start setting up our online accounts. Personal connection is really important for interacting online. The better others can visualize you as a real person the more likely they will be to want connect and network with you.
1. Branding
Having the one online identity across all your accounts makes it easier for others to connect and relate to you. When starting out we often feel nervous about using our own identity but there are many long term benefits. Read Vicki Davis’s advice to educators on the value of using their own identity (take the time to read the comments also).
It’s amazing how often I network with people using sites like twitter, and their username is so unusual that it can take me months to realise “Oh that’s really John from John’s Blog and I love reading his blog.”
2. Sharing Your Human Side
Giving people a glimpse of your human side, warts and all, is important — this makes you human as opposed to a machine. Show people that you have a sense of humour, that stuff upsets you, that something exciting has happened….. Help them connect with you.
Take for example my post Vacation Without Internet Access? What The? — those readers who network with me a lot, know how addicted I am, were laughing at the idea of me not coping well without Internet access and know in reality that a break would be healthy for me. Others could relate because they’ve faced similar situations themselves.
3. Build Your Identity Using Variety
Text can convey your feelings, emotions and to some extent your personality but won’t help others build the visual picture of what you look like. Your photos means others can visualise what you look like to some extent e.g. no sense of height (I’m 167 cm).
I find twitter gives others a much deeper insight into my personality than blog posts; because I tend express more sides of my emotions and my interactions with others can be synchronous.
A voice to go with a photo helps further to create the mental image. But video is even better as it adds an entirely different dimension again — it helps complete the image. Kate Foy showed me the power of this at the end of the 31 Days to Build A Better Blog — thanks Kate.
I’ve created a quick video of me talking so you can check it out. If you are reading this in your feed reader — you might prefer to watch it on my blog — just press the play on the Edublogs image.
So what do you think? Should I change my photo to the one from dinner? Perhaps I should mix them up to keep you guessing?
How do you create your online identity? Have you found mental images you have created been considerably different from the real person when you’ve meet?
If you’re not already subscribing to the RSS feed from your own blog using a feed reader e.g. Google Reader it’s time you did! You can’t always guarantee readers will tell you there is a problem .
What happened to Martin Weller (The Ed Techie) yesterday is a classic example of the need to subscribe. Martin uses Typepad which unfortunately experienced a brief problem with their feed service on TypePad. Some TypePad users were affected, where another blog’s entries appeared to be coming from their feed.
Yesterday in the feed from Martin’s blog was 10 new posts on motherhood which surprisingly enough weren’t his, but were from Jumping Monkey’s blog. I read his blog and didn’t realise the problem due to the sheer number of blogs I subscribe to; I thought I must have added an unusual blog to my readings.
Added benefit of subscribing to your own blog feed is you see your posts how they are seen by readers. Means you pick up any problems such as issues with font sizes, image size/alignment and removal of content (e.g. embeds like SlideShare, Voicethreads and videos may not appear in your post when viewed in a feed reader — appears to be influenced by which blog platform you use).
While I’m at it! My personal request is if you want me to subscribe to your posts please make sure you have your feed set to full feed not partial. I virtually never click on the more link for posts that are partial feeds — I don’t have the time SORRY.
Tara Ethridge asked the Classroom 2.0 community “What are your top 3 blogs you’d recommend others to read about web 2.0, collaboration or anything technology-related?” so that she could create a list for teachers at her school of the most commonly recommended.
While I like the idea of helping teachers locate blogs to read — there is no way I would ever consider promoting 3 blogs!
Graham Wegner’s What Makes A Good Blog masterfully captures the essence of why it is an issue for me. Several weeks ago Graham and I had a discussion using twitter on what we like/don’t like in blog posts. As Graham says:
We found that we both appreciated very different qualities in the readability of blogs. What I might find artful and clever wordsmithing might be painful reading for another. Step by step instructions with annotated screengrabs and how-to-be-a-great-whatever appeal to some people but have me reaching for the “Mark As Read” button.
As individual’s we each have our own personal preferences of what we like and don’t like. Now that Google Reader has linked Reader with Google Talk so now all your shared items will be visible to your friends from Google Talk, and vice versa its become plainly obvious how unique individuals are in terms of what they see as a good post/blog.
If someone asked you to recommend books to read — you would start with first finding out what type of books the person likes to read. Pointless recommending Murders, Mysteries or Thrillers when they liked romances; or better still they actually hate reading books but love watching movies.
Trouble is when a person hasn’t been exposed to reading blogs — they don’t know their personal preferences. Provide a limited selection of Shakesharpe like blogs when Barbara Cartland better suits their style or vice versa — may mean they don’t learn to appreciate the value of reading blogs.
My Advice
My advice to educators new to reading blogs is to:
highlight that as individuals we each look for very different qualities in the readability of blogs — perhaps start with Aseem Badshah Top Education Bloggers or edubloggers based upon Technorati’s rankings. When you find blogs you like — take the time to check out blogs in their blogroll since these may include similar type authors
While personal preference influences what people identify as a good blog; there are practices that will make you a more effective blogger — here are My Advice On Being A More Effective Blogger!
FINAL THOUGHT
Thanks to Tara Ethridge for starting this great conversation, Dan continuing it and inspiring Graham to write his response. Although Graham - I’m thinking I need some screengrabs to finish it off — ROFL.
I use TweetScan all the time to effectively manage conversations in Twitter that I want to track e.g. replies to my twitter name dswaters and any other variations people have used e.g. suewaters and tags like Edublogs.
With the number of people I follow I need TweetScan as my eyes and ears. By subscribing to the RSS feed for the tracking term using my feed reader I’m notified through Google Reader whenever anyone, anywhere, tweeters that term.
Unfortunately - DUH - I have had a bit of a delay in realising that TweetScan stopped scanning 36 hours ago and I wasn’t receiving the updates.
Not to fear! I just changed over to another twitter tracking tool - Terraminds - added these the RSS feeds for my terms to my Twitter folder in Google Reader and programming has now recommenced.
Here is how I subscribed to TweetScan using my Google Reader. You use the same procedure for Terraminds.
Proof - it is possible for me to quickly write a post, one handed, while drying my hair, with 2 kids fighting in the background, while drinking a glass of water!
If you aren’t tracking tag terms in twitter I strongly recommend you try it out.
Trouble is I’m not sure? Ultimately what I want is a simple an effective mechanism to manage comments. Co.mment provides me with this solution. coComment definitely has more functionality and it focuses more on the community aspect.
SO I have decided that I need the community (i.e. those that use coComment) to sell me on the benefits of using coComment because perhaps the issue is how I’m using it. So my plan is to show how I use the application and hopefully this will help others highlight aspects that I’m missing.
Comment Feed Viewed In Google Reader
I like to manage comments that I track by adding the RSS feed to my Google Reader account.
When a new comment is added to a post I’m tracking using co.mment it shows an extract of the post, the name of the commenter, date, number of comments on post and the comment.
My feed from cocomment provides considerably less information. No extract from the original post, no indication of the number of comments on the post and the name of the commenter is only displayed if that person has an account with cocomment.
If the commenter doesn’t have an account the comment says Unknown says……. To make matters worse at the moment all comments with Unknown says are being feed through without the comments!!!!
The feed from co.mment provides me enough information to remind me why I am tracking the conversation so that I can make an informed decision to respond back to the comment without having to go to comment or visit the original blog. This is not the case for the feed from cocomment.
Blogging is all about having the conversations — not talking to yourself! True conversations, which is what we want to achieve, is when we all, author and commenters interact.
Managing Comments on Other People’s blogs
I’ve many tips for keeping up the conversations on blogs but I believe the most important is being very effective at managing my comments on other people’s blogs. I use co-mment, which tracks my comments, and it notifies me automatically by sending the comment to my Google Reader account. This way when a person comments on a post that I have commented on I can choose to immediately respond back if I want. Co-mment means I can effectively manage my conversations, and they can be near instantaneous.
Setting up Co.mment Account
Go to co.mment and click on Get an account to set up your account
Click on Tool/Setting link and follow instructions to add bookmarklet to your web browser
Add A Post You Want To Follow To Co.mment
Write your comment on the post you want to track
Then click on the Co.mment bookmarklet in your web browser — make sure you are logged into your co.mment account
Subscribing To Your Comments From Co.mment Using A Feed Reader
There are a few options for recieving updates of new comments on blog conversations you are following:
Read them directly on your tracking page at co.mment
Subscribe by email — means you receive e-mail alerts when new comments are posted
Subscribe to your tracking page RSS feed using a Feed Reader i.e. new comments are delivered to your Feed Reader
Subscribing using RSS is the most efficient method because you can use it to manage all the information you receive e.g. comments from your co.mment tracking page, latest posts from blogs you read, your friends Flickr photos.
Responding Back To Comments
By subscribing to my co.mment tracking page using Google Reader I’m quickly notified when a person comments on a post I’m tracking so I can quickly choose to respond back if I want.
FINAL THOUGHTS
Do you use comment tracking applications? If so, do you prefer co.mment or cocomment and why? What are your tips for achieving true conversations on blogs?
The best blog posts, for me, are those that make me STOP, reflect, ponder and challenge my own viewpoints!
Take Claire Thompson“How to turn “Me Vision Into We Vision” post where she discusses the need to ensure we don’t limit our learning by getting sucked into group thinking — by restricting our blog reading and interactions to people who think the same way that we do.
There is Need For Some Repetition
My belief is you do need a balance; and there is a need for a certain amount of repetition since sometimes the same thing needs to be said several ways for you to pay attention.
My Tips For Diversifying Blog Subscriptions and Interactions
There a quite a few effective ways that you can ensure your readings are more diversified without going into information overload with the minimal amount of work!
1. Google Reader
Google has linked Reader with Google Talk so now all your shared items will be visible to your friends from Google Talk, and vice versa. My friends all share radically different posts — all far removed from the types of posts I would normally read.
2. Tweetscan
I’m soooo in love with Tweetscan! So simple! And so great at providing excellent links. Enter the search term, add the RSS to your Feed Reader e.g. Google Reader and you are notified whenever anyone twitters anything using that search term.
3. Technorati Tags and Google Blog Search Tags
Subscribing to Technorati and Google Blog Searchtags is a good way of finding posts on specific topics. I’ve found it a great way to locate new blogs but you do need to accept a certain amount of skimming reading to weed the good from the bad.
Be WARNED: Technorati doesn’t recognise e-learning or m-learning as a search term — it will grab posts that contain the word learning. Instead make sure you use elearning and mlearning. Read more about using Technorati here!
Technorati and Google Blog Search will give you different results for the same tag term — which is why I subscribe to both.
4. Google Alerts
Google Alerts are email updates of the latest relevant Google results (web, news, etc.) based on your choice of query or topic. Really simple to use. Search is wider than blog search as it also searches news sources and the web.
5. Twitter
Many people are now relying solely on twitter to provide them with links to articles worth reading; which I think is a shame as there is a definite risk of group thinking if you’re not careful especially if you have only like minded people within your network e.g. educators only. Personally I like a mixture in my twitter network; educators, non-profits, web designers, programmers.
6. Better Blog Community
My involvement with the 31 Day Blogging Project expanded my interaction with bloggers other than educators. The Better Blog Community was established as a result of this project and is an excellent way of finding/interacting with bloggers outside your niche area.
FINAL THOUGHT
It’s late! Got my first day back with students in the morning…. So will be in trouble if I don’t get some sleep.
Would love to hear your thoughts on balance — how do we achieve enough of the same but ensuring sufficient diversity without getting information overload? What works best for you?
UPDATE
Was so tired last night I gave this post the title “Tips for diversifying your blog subscriptions”. Then this morning changed it to “Tips for Minimising Group Thinking”. Now changed it back as people had already linked to the original title. ROFL as still really tired and can’t make up my mind on a good title - so please choose your own!
As Graham Wegner highlighted in his comment on The Edublogger –”it wasn’t all that long ago (well over a year I think!) I had a Skype conversation with Alex Hayes and your good self where you declared that you didn’t really “get blogging.” So true, I didn’t get blogging and was into podcasting! Yep, took awhile to “get blogging” and thankfully the 31 Day Blogging Project made me a more effective blogger.
For me, the key to my gain from the 31 Day Blogging Project, was completing the daily tasks while collaboratively working together within a team of 14 participants. Knowledge gain was greater working in a team, because each individual gained a different perspective from the task - giving participants greater “food for thought!”
The team aspect of the project is sooo important – which is why I pleased that a new group of bloggers have just begun working together on the 31 Day Project! Congratulations Kate Olson, Sarah Stewart, Jess Mcculloch and Andy Roberts (please drop past their blogs to provide assistance and encouragement). Kate’s explanations for her involvement are inspirational
As just anyone in the world has the power to create a blog, I feel it’s my responsibility to go above and beyond to learn all that I can. My students (and colleagues learning from me in the professional development arena) deserve to have an educator who is dedicated to learning.
Here are some tips from my experience of the 31 Day Project that will help keep you sane going:
Check Out What Others Learnt
Before I started a task I would first check out what the others had learnt! Saved time and gave me ideas! Summary of what I learnt is located on this page of my wiki with links to daily tasks you need to complete (those relating to being a problogger have been remove). Click on the participants photo on the 31 Day Project page of my blog to view what each participant learnt when we did the project (please let me know if there is a problem with any links and I will fix).
As you progress it is easy to lose track and feel worn out! Ticking off progress was important - writing the task number with progress status, smiley face and the famous tick/cross all helped (especially the image of the tick and smiley face).
FINAL THOUGHT
For those that have already completed the 31 Day Project — What are your tips/advice for the new participants?
If you have been thinking about doing the 31 Days to build a better blog, or wanted to improve your blogging, I strongly recommend you join the latest 31 Day Project Team and join the Better Blog Community (so the community can supply support)! Please let me know if you are joining so I can drop past your blog to provide encouragement.
Let’s be honest I need all the help I can get. My weight has crept up 
. And like all woman I don’t like to feel fat! Thankfully I’ve got great friends in Christy Tucker and Christine Martell that decided to help me with my weight problem.
Subscribing for free
