Learning From Your Blog
It’s common now to think of writing a blog as an education for your readers, but I find the blogger also learns a great deal in two significant ways.
- Reader feedback and discussions - The most obvious ways a blog helps you learn and understand your topic better is when you put ideas out and your readers correct, engage, develop or expand on them. I’m fortunate to have readers with a great deal of expertise and experience to share, I am sure you have clever folks reading you too. It’s also amazing how ideas can improve the more enthusiastic brains they travel through.
- Putting your articles together - It’s funny how much a teacher can learn through the act of teaching. The same is true for writers. In putting your articles together, the research, keeping up to date with your subject area, thinking about and connecting ideas, and then forumulating a good way to communicate, it’s like immersion learning.
This is something first mentioned to me by Liz, but I only recently realized the real impact this blog has had on me. It has to be a good thing when you learn as much as your readers do, everyone wins 
How has your blog educated you?
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Posted on June 12th, 2008 by Chris Garrett in Blogging
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Mostly I think I have learned about writing, more than my topic. How to write clearly and present things in bite size chunks. Also how to write conversationally - my natural style is to present the ideas in compact form and leave it at that (not exactly designed for blogs).
Very good question, Chris!
My blog educates me to look at my photos in a different way. What do they mean to me, and what do they tell others? Do they tell something at all? Do they speak for themselves? Do they have a certain story, and which? How can it be told?
Ulla
A blog educated me on how to manage time and organize work as well.
I learn from you chris
But its true that we learn a lot from other people comments and from our own articles. It keeps us updated and keeps us craving for more details whenever we read our own blog. It actually reminds me of my college days wherein I have to go to the library to research for a report.
I take minimum 3 to 4 hours at an average to draft a post. Each post is a experience for me to learn more about google maps,google earth and the contents as well.Further it improves my memory to retrieve information faster.
As a software trainer for over 8 years, I can tell you that teaching teaches the teacher a lot more than it teaches the students! When I write for my blog, I see the role as one of teaching, so it’s the same. I learn an incredible amount when I have to do research and explain things to others.
I have learned that my main subject is a touchy one. It actually cost me my adsense account.
Awesome points. I definitely find myself coming up with better ways to do things when I try to help others. Blogging has educated me on my own habits. The actual act of blogging, regardless of the subject, has made me very aware of my best and worst habits and tendencies.
Earlier this week I wrote a post about how the charity commission is arguing that individuals blogs are not acceptable learning tools. Loads of people - including Andrew Dubber who pointed me to your blog left comments about why a blog helps learning.
Oh, I am absolutely convinced that every time I teach something (on my blog, on the ABF, in real life) I’m the one making the most of it. and I Learn a lot by writing.
I even feel grateful for the people willing to listen (or read) my explanations, because I’m certainly using them for my own purposes while helping them with theirs. It is one of those win-win situations.
Nice thoughts… Some years ago I had big difficulties on understanding what was the difference between a website and a blog.
I used to think of blogs like free personal websites, nothing more than this. Of course I missed up the whole web2.0 and social networking behind it.. I didn’t understand that “blogs” where not only free personal webistes.
Since forums saw their way on the net, I think blogs are the most important social networking tool around, the difference is there is a “king of the blog”… and this differs from forums administrators or moderators.
Those are all subtle differences that instead make big ones in relations (even virtual ones).
Maybe I got a bit off-topic but your post gave me some seconds to go back with my thoghts and have a better “brainstorming” vision of how my perception of this “instrument” changed in years.
Indeed you can learn much ruling a blog because you can learn much from relationships no matter if real or virtual.
Best wishes
Chris, I completely agree! Blogging allowed me to discover my own voice. I write for a living but have to adopt “the voice of the customer” on each assignment in order to attract and engage their client base. My readers have not only broadened my perspective, and enriched my knowledge but have also given me room to allow my gifts to grow. I have received much more from blogging than I feel I can ever give back.
I have two blogs and a forum plus couple of websites and I will have to say they have made me really very professional
I have been working hard on them and now using them as full time money earners even though i am a student too…
my blogs taught me one thing
be good to others if you want them to be good to you
Chris,
I just recently found your blog and am finding it very interesting.
I’ve been blogging for almost two years now (Aug. 2006) and podcasting for over a year (March 2007), and I have learned that readers to my blog want practical advice about what to do in the classroom to make their lives easier. I am introducing new digital technology into my blog all the time to show my readers what’s available for them to use, but I still get the most feedback and questions about people problems, not technology problems. So, that’s what I blog about.
Consistency on my post help me learn a lot. If I focus on putting a really good content, it helped me, ‘coz I have to do more research about the topic before starting to write.