Norah Colvin

Live Love Laugh Learn … Create the possibilities

Tag: blogging

  • Life is like . . . a game of Snakes and Ladders

    http://www.morguefile.com/
    http://www.morguefile.com/

    Well, maybe not the whole of life; that would be rather two dimensional; but certainly parts of life. I’m feeling a little that way at the moment about my website plans. No sooner do I seem to find a ladder to climb up, than I encounter a huge snake, and down I go again. At the moment I seem to be stuck in a three-steps-forward three-steps-back dance.

    © Norah Colvin
    © Norah Colvin

    I won’t say that everything one needs in life can be learned from playing Snakes and Ladders, but there are certainly some good lessons to learn from playing games. I mentioned some previously in Are you game? written in response to a flash fiction challenge set by Charli Mills at the Carrot Ranch; and observed them recently when playing Snakes and Ladders with my five year old grandson:

    dice

    • Getting along and taking turns
    • Acceptance – accept the roll and respond accordingly: don’t try to pretend it wasn’t a “proper” roll (e.g. dropped); or attempt to change the count by skipping or counting twice on a square
    • Resilience ­– stay strong and focused and don’t crumple with repeated setbacks: okay, so you’ve been swallowed by this same snake three times now; next time you just might overcome it
    • Persistence – keep going: you might roll a succession of small numbers but each moves you closer to the goal
    • Humour and fun – always look for the light side: it is just a game after all, it’s not the winning that matters, it’s how you play it. (On the board that we played, one of the ladders ended on the same square as a snake’s head! What could we do but laugh!)
    © Norah Colvin
    © Norah Colvin

    I guess those are lessons I need to apply to my website “game”: I have made some good progress preparing resources; I have had some work illustrated; and I approached a web designer for a quote. The ladders seemed to be lining up just right.

    Then I landed on another snake!

    In a comment on a previous post Anne Goodwin, who blogs at Annecdotal and is author of the soon-to-be-released Sugar and Snails, suggested that I be mindful of my Unique Selling Point (USP).

    I think my USP is probably the same as what I consider my Point of Difference (POD): resources that are interactive. Unfortunately, judging by the quote I received, the POD snake has an extreme appetite.

    In a post about his self publication journey Geoff Le Pard, author of Dead Flies and Sherry Trifle who blogs at TanGental, stated that he wanted to spend as little “real” money as possible. I know that I need to spend some to achieve my goals, and as a way justifying the expense to myself, if not to anyone else, I decided to consider it a “retirement jetski”.

    My retirement jetski
    My retirement jetski

    However an initial quote indicates that the interactive component of resources could end up costing as much as a Bugatti or a Lamborghini!

    http://www.morguefile.com/
    http://www.morguefile.com/

    Okay, I am exaggerating – a little.

    But I think I’ve slid down the back of that long snake and need to do a little recalculation as recommended a short while ago Charli Mills. I will let you know how I go extricating myself from the loop.

    Snakes and ladders – Opportunities for learning

    In the meanwhile, here are some suggestions for parents to make the most of learning opportunities while playing Snakes and Ladders with their children over the long summer holidays. We don’t want the progress that children have made during the term to be swallowed up by those snakes as was suggested as a distinct possibility by Sarah Brentyn in her post Harry Potter or Sidewalk Chalk? on her blog Lemon Shark. While I provided some suggestions for preventing that slide in a previous post, these suggestions are specifically for

    Making the most of “teachable moments” while playing snakes and ladders:

    On each turn, ask children to:

    • identify the number rolled on the dice and move their tokens the corresponding number of squares, counting them out. Ensure they do not count the square they are on.
    • tell the number they land on.

    Other opportunities for discussion:

    • Who is coming first? What number are they on? What number are you on? How many do you (they) need to catch up? Could you (they) catch up with the next throw? Why/Why not?
    • How many do you need to throw to land on a snake, on a ladder? Do you want to land on a snake or a ladder? Why or why not? If you land on a snake (or a ladder), will the number be higher or lower than where you are now?
    • What number do you not want to roll if you don’t want to land on a snake?
    • What number do you need to roll to land on a ladder?
    • How many do you need to win?

    Ask the children what they notice about the way the numbers are arranged. How does it differ from a usual 100 board? ( On a Snakes and Ladders board, 100 is at the top and the numbers “snake” back and forth across the board. On a 100 counting board, 100 is at the bottom and each row of ten numbers goes from left to right.)

    100 flowers outline
    100 counting board © Norah Colvin

    Ask the children why the numbers may be arranged differently (eg 100 has to be at the top so you can go up the ladders, numbers go back and forth so you can just keep going).

    But most of all, just have fun!

    Thank you

    Thank you for reading. I appreciate your feedback. Please share your thoughts.

     

  • Five Photos Five Stories — Day four

    Back to Day one (books) and introduction to the challenge

    Back to Day two (writing)

    Back to Day three (Break out)

    My retirement jetski

    My retirement jetski
    My retirement jetski

    Geoff Le Pard threw me a challenge to post five photos and five stories over five days. He is probably just as surprised as I am that I took him up on it, especially as this week is particularly busy and significant.

    Tomorrow I finally break up with a relationship that has been on-again-off-again for over forty years. Tomorrow is my last day working for Education Queensland. While I then become “officially” retired, some of you may know that I am not very fond of that “R” word and prefer to think of my life as taking a redirection.

    In a couple of weeks’ time I commence another part-time job at the University of Queensland with the exact number of hours for me to remain “officially” retired, but nominally “working part-time”. The remainder of the week I will continue to write and work towards fulfilling my goal of establishing an online store of educational resources. This is where the jetski comes in.

    There are many expenses involved with preparing content for the website including getting work illustrated, having the website designed and, hopefully, if I can figure out a way, having interactivity added to some resources. Deciding how much cost is acceptable is difficult when there is no guarantee of ever getting any return, and often the time I spend tapping away on my computer keyboard when I could be doing other things comes into question.

    The fact is I love tapping away on my computer keyboard writing works of my choosing, and the expenses involved are necessary in order to make my “creations” available to others through a website. If I were to choose a jetski, a sports car or an around the world cruise as a retirement gift for myself, as many do, and spend hours each day riding the waves or the roads, no one would question my choice of activity or the cost of the initial purchase or ongoing maintenance. They would be pleased that I was having fun, enjoying my later years. Well, for the moment at least, writing is my pleasure and I (try to) justify the expense by calling it my “jetski”.

    As my work targets an early childhood market, illustrations are an essential accompaniment to my work. When I first registered my business and domain name, my (graphic designer) niece designed my logo and beautiful banner, which you see at the top of my blog, and produced illustrations for some stories. Recently I have had other illustrations done by artists from 99designs so I am starting to make headway in that direction.

    Kari Jones (ArtbyJonz), who did the S.M.A.G. badge has produced illustrations for two stories. Here is a sneak peek at one illustration from each:

    ArtbyJonz ©Norah Colvin 2015
    ArtbyJonz ©Norah Colvin 2015
    ArtbyJonz ©Norah Colvin 2015
    ArtbyJonz ©Norah Colvin 2015

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

    and sneak peeks of illustrations for stories by Sketcherlady, Goetia and Tyohermawan, to whom I awarded the first contest.

    sketcherlady ©Norah Colvin 2015
    sketcherlady ©Norah Colvin 2015
    Goetia ©Norah Colvin 2015
    Goetia ©Norah Colvin 2015
    tyohermawan ©Norah Colvin 2015
    tyohermawan ©Norah Colvin 2015

    I have been very happy working with each of these designers. They have all been very helpful and accommodating and worked hard to produce illustrations to match my requests. I am happy to recommend any of them if you are looking at getting some work illustrated.

    The next step is to speak with a web designer. I must say I’m a bit fearful of the cost, but hey, it’s my jetski.

    What seems to be more problematic at the moment is adding interactivity to some resources. PowerPoint has some facility but not enough. I looked at another program recently which promised any interactivity I could imagine. But unfortunately the program designers had not imagined what I had! I discussed some of my requirements with a friend who is learning to code and he thought it would even be difficult to code what I want. Since these open-ended interactions are to be a point of difference for me, if I can’t have them, I may need to trade-in my jetski on something completely different. Maybe a novel? (That must be pretty easy, eh Geoff?) I’m not sure I’m ready for that. If you have any suggestions about adding interactivity to resources I’d love to receive them please.

    I nominate my lovely fellow local Queensland bloggers to take up this Five Photos Five Stories challenge should they so wish:

    Irene Waters who writes memoir and blogs at Reflections and Nightmares and already shares many beautiful photos and stories;

    Desley Jane, a girl with a camera who blogs at Musings of a Frequent Flying Scientist; and

    Marigold Dicer who blogs at Versus Blurb but who has popped off the scene temporarily while she completes what used to be called “prac” teaching when I went to college.

    Please be aware that your participation is completely voluntary. I know each of you already post frequent photo stories. However if you choose to participate, I hope you enjoy the challenge as much as I have. 🙂

    The “rules” of the Five Photos, Five Stories Challenge are:

    1) Post a photo each day for five consecutive days.
    2) Attach a story to the photo. It can be fiction, non-fiction, poetry, or a short paragraph. It’s entirely up to the individual.
    3) Nominate another blogger to carry on the challenge. Your nominee is free to accept or decline the invitation. This is fun, not a command performance!

    Thank you

    Thank you for reading. I appreciate your feedback. Please share your thoughts.

     

  • S.M.A.G. is here!

    writing

    In just a couple of months it will be two years since I started blogging. Writing a blog had never been a goal of mine. In fact it would be fair to say that until I started blogging I didn’t have much of an idea of what it was; or of any social media platforms for that matter. I was a latecomer to the party considering, according to Wikipedia, blogging began in the 1990s!

    My goal at the time of beginning blogging was, and still is, to set up a website of educational resources for use in early childhood classrooms or homes. The main message I received when attending a writers’ seminar about digital publishing was the importance of having an “online presence”. I took the advice and started tweeting and blogging.  Here I am now, a semi-experienced tweeter and blogger, still a bit unsure about the online presence.

    tweet bird

    I started blogging with a goal of posting twice a week, which I have pretty much maintained since then. Initially I had just few readers, all of whom were “real” people, family and friends, I already knew. As much as I was, and am, very grateful for their continued support and encouragement, it was very exciting to receive my first “outside” comment two months later.

    It was over four months before any new readers visited and commented regularly. Some of those first readers are still with me (Anne and Caroline), others have moved on, and others have since joined. Now I have a wonderful group of online friends. As with offline friendships we interact when we can, exchanging comments and ideas with each other, mostly on our blogs and Twitter.

    https://openclipart.org/detail/117199/Friendship
    https://openclipart.org/detail/117199/Friendship

    I have been as fortunate with my online friendships as I have with my offline friendships. (I was tempted to use the word “real” instead of “offline”, but I consider my online friendships no less real.) We don’t have to see each other every day, every week, or even every month, for the friendships to flourish. Wherever the friendships form, they require certain ingredients to keep them strong, including:

    respect, acceptance, attention, appreciation, gratitude, and open communication that goes both ways.

    I really appreciate people who challenge and extend my thinking as much as those who are happy to jump on my bandwagon with me, or just come along for the ride.

    Gerald_G, Kids wagon https://openclipart.org/image/800px/svg_to_png/40459/Kids-Wagon.png
    Gerald_G, Kids wagon https://openclipart.org/image/800px/svg_to_png/40459/Kids-Wagon.png

    During the past few months when some of my blogging friends and I have been sharing appreciation for each other and our comments, I have suggested that we belong to S.M.A.G.: The Society of Mutual Appreciation and Gratitude.

    It started off in a light-hearted way (yes, I coined it) but others seemed to appreciate the thought and welcomed the idea of belonging to a group that required of them no extra effort. I decided that a S.M.A.G. badge to be displayed by anyone who wished was in order.

    In a previous post, I discussed the need for Making choices in how I allocate my use of time while working towards achieving my goals (including posting twice weekly). I shared thoughts about using a contest on 99designs to obtain illustrations for some of my work. While I was very happy with the illustrations, I was a bit uncomfortable with the contest process. However I decided that engaging each of the three runner-up finalists to do other illustrations in a guaranteed one-on-one project would (in my mind) help, in a little way, to make up for all the work they had done without reward. I have since done this and feel much happier about the process and am pleased with the results.

    One of the designers, Kari Jones (ArtbyJonz), is now illustrating a second book for me and I approached her for the S.M.A.G. badge. This is what she produced. I love it. I hope you do to.

    SMAG ccbyncnd

    If you would like to display it on your blog, and share it with your blogging friends, I would be honoured for you to do so, but please attribute it to me and link back to this page.

    I have found Kari wonderful to work with. She has been very helpful and accommodating and I am delighted with the artwork she has produced for me. If you are looking for illustrations I am happy to recommend Kari. You can check out some of her other work on her ArtPal page and contact her on Facebook if you have any queries.

    So thank you, all my friends, for your continued support and readership. Whether or not you choose to post the badge, you are still part of S.M.A.G. and it is a pleasure knowing you.

    Thank you

    Thank you for reading. I appreciate your feedback. Please share your thoughts about any aspect of this post.

  • Assessing the impact of blogging on writing goals

    cyberscooty, a basketball about to enter a basketball hoop https://openclipart.org/detail/205569/basketball
    cyberscooty, a basketball about to enter a basketball hoop https://openclipart.org/detail/205569/basketball

    I love writing. Always have. I usually confess that I am a better writer than a speaker.

    I like the time that I can take to choose a word or phrase and combine them to mean just what I intend.

    I like the opportunity to check a word’s appropriateness before using it. Often when speaking I leave my sentence hanging embarrassingly in mid-air while I grope around in the murkiness of my mind for the “correct” word.  Why can my fingertips find the right word, without any thought, and the tongue cannot?

    And of course there are all the opportunities that writing provides for self-expression, creativity and sharing ideas with a wider audience.

    I started out writing stories, poems and songs, as most children, do and tried my hand at short stories, children’s stories and poetry as I got older. As I became more involved with my career in education, and in raising my children, I had (or made) less time for those creative pursuits.

    There are many reasons I loved being a teacher and one of those was the opportunity it provided for me to be creative: creative and innovative in the way I worked with children to encourage their learning; and creative in writing resources to assist my teaching and the children’s learning.

    I was fortunate in having a variety of opportunities to write materials for educational publishers at different times during my career, and I am currently writing documents to support curriculum implementation for my state educational authority. But I really wanted to be in control of my own writing.

    At the back of my mind there was always the thought of sharing my teaching and learning resources with a wider audience. (Just a little bit further back, or maybe even close to equal footing, is the thought of publishing children’s stories, short stories, and maybe even a novel . . . one day.) I had had no success with submitting unsolicited manuscripts before and couldn’t think what publisher might be interested in the variety of educational resources I had made, many specifically for use on a computer.

    So a couple of years ago I decided that a website of my own was the ideal platform for sharing my resources.  Getting that website up and running is my primary goal. However, observers could be mistaken in thinking that writing a blog is my primary goal. The path to establishing a website has taken a side-track via blogging.

    venkatrao, A butterfly flying with a dotted path over a hill background https://openclipart.org/detail/69967/1278212857
    venkatrao, A butterfly flying with a dotted path over a hill background https://openclipart.org/detail/69967/1278212857

    Blogging, Twitter, Facebook and other forms of social media were recommended me to right from the beginning as a way of targeting and establishing an audience. At the time I was familiar with none of these and set off learning how to become involved. It has been an exciting journey. I have learned lots and made many wonderful online friends.

    However I am not sure how far it has moved me towards achieving my website goal. In fact, I think very little progress has been made.

    • I have not found and established my “target” audience and am really none the wiser about doing that.
    • The time that I am spending writing, reading and commenting on blogs is time that I am not spending on preparing materials for my website.
    • I need to be more proactive in finding illustrators for my work.
    • When I discovered the Teachers Pay Teachers site and established my Teachers Pay Teachers Store I had thought this may be an alternative avenue for sharing my work. But I haven’t been as successful there as I would like either. This may be telling me something about my website goal. What is it telling me? Should I listen?

    So my dilemma comes down to these questions”

    To blog or not to blog?

    How to blog?

    How much time for blogging?

    The answer to the first one is easy:

    Yes! I very much enjoy writing my post and receiving the almost immediate feedback from the wonderful community of writers I engage with.

    Yes! I love reading and commenting on others’ blogs and joining in the discussions that ensue. We are a S.M.A.G. group: Society of Mutual Appreciation and Gratitude. What’s to not like?

    The second two questions are a little more difficult.

    The focus of my blog is education, but my audience consists of writers. Educators have shown little interest in developing a relationship with me online. I haven’t been able to figure that one out, but I have a few hazy ideas, none of which I think I want to address at this stage. If I change the way I blog I would quite likely fall out with the community I have become part of; and there is no guarantee I would pick up a teacher audience. So I’ll have to keep mulling this one over for a while.

    The third question is the one I have been “researching” for close on five months. As time is limited and I need to devote more time to achieving my primary goal, it is important that time spent on blogging activities is worthwhile.

    I decided to find out who is keen to engage with me and who isn’t.

    I began keeping a record of the number of comments I made on others’ blogs, and of those they made on mine.  It wasn’t always as I expected, and highlighted some interesting trends; the main one of which I have noted above:

    Writers have a wonderful sense of community.

    The record helped me ensure that, if someone visited and commented on my blog, I would visit and comment on theirs, maintaining a balance as much as possible.

    This key explains how to interpret the information on the tables below.

    Table legend

    I have removed names from the tables to respect privacy. (I don’t really expect you to look too hard at the tables. You have better things to do. But they do look pretty!)

    November 9 2014 – Jan 24 2015

    Slide1

     

    Jan 25 2015 – March 26 2015

     

    Slide2

    I have not included all blogs I “follow”, or even all the ones I have ever commented on. Only the ones on which there has been some consistency in connecting.

    I have also not included the comments of those who follow and comment on my posts but do not have a blog of their own on which I could reciprocate.

    I generally post twice a week.

    Others post more often.

    Sometimes the number of comments I make on their posts in relation to their comments on mine is affected by the greater number of times they post. If someone chooses to post more often than twice a week, I will not necessarily read all their posts, regardless of how much I enjoy reading them, as there are other ways I must use my time, including a reading greater variety of writer’s work, and getting more done on my own. I’m sure they have enough other readers to not miss me!

    Sometimes when a blogger posts less frequently than I do, their comments on my posts may tip the scales in my favour. I can’t do much about that either, but I do try to catch up when next they post.

    I have found that it can take a few weeks of commenting on a blog I like to get a return visit and comment on my blog. Frequently I don’t even get a response to a comment I’ve made on theirs. I guess that’s how it goes. Some bloggers blog to develop community. Others blog to broadcast. I just need to decide how best to use my time.

    If you have walked with me to the end of this post, thank you. It is rather longer than I intended. I had intended to respond to Anne Goodwin’s invitation to join in a writing process blog hop , Sherri Matthews’ invitation to join a workspace blog hop, and Sarah Brentyn’s questions for writers, as well as explain my writing goals to Sacha Black, thank Julie stock for her Sisterhood of the World bloggers award and draw on Paula Reed Nancarrow’s wonderful survey about Twitter #hashtag days and blogging. But they will have to wait. We all have others things to do.

    Contributing partly to my procrastination with responding to these wonderful invitations, which I do very much appreciate, is that I have already nominated the majority of bloggers I follow, or if I haven’t someone else has. And the remaining ones don’t wish to be nominated. What is a girl to do? I’d appreciate your suggestions.

    Thank you

    Thank you for reading.

    I appreciate your feedback. Please share your thoughts and advice, especially about how to increase time. If anyone knows a good time alchemist, I’d love to meet her!

  • Online friends – real or imaginary?

    https://openclipart.org/image/800px/svg_to_png/192458/friends-icon.png
    https://openclipart.org/image/800px/svg_to_png/192458/friends-icon.png

    In a previous post Will you be my friend? I asked the question

    “Should one maintain separation from one’s online friends, or take the risk of meeting in person should the opportunity arise?”

    The reason for my asking the question, although I didn’t state it openly at the time, was that I was planning a quick visit to the UK to visit family and wondered if there may have been some of my online ‘friends’ who would like to meet up while I was there.

    applications-internet

    In the short time that I had been blogging I had become part of a friendly little circle of writers who frequently visited and commented on my blog, and whose blogs I visited and commented on. Sometimes we would have quite in-depth discussions about a range of topics, and these discussions would often spill over onto Twitter. Few days would go by when we weren’t communicating with each other in some way and we were developing a certain amount of comfort with each other and our discussions.

    Since some members of this group lived in the UK, I wondered if it might be fun to meet up with them in person but was concerned about what might happen to our online relationship if I didn’t live up to their expectations or we didn’t get along in face-to-face conversation.

    I decided to ask the question via my blog to see what responses I would receive, and indeed to see if any of those I was thinking about contacting would respond and give me an inkling about their thoughts on the matter.

    The responses I received were encouraging.

    https://openclipart.org/image/800px/svg_to_png/148843/1310261210.png
    https://openclipart.org/image/800px/svg_to_png/148843/1310261210.png

    Joanne, who blogs at Writeaway, said that she had met one of her online friends in person. It obviously went well because she said that she wouldn’t be averse to meeting others though she considered geography to be a restriction. I had thought about that too, for although it’s a long way from Australia to the UK, travel distances within the UK could still be great and, while I was going to be based in London, I didn’t know where my friends lived.

    Bec, who blogs at There’s no food said she believed there was a lot of value in online friendships. I knew she would because she and her partner of almost ten years met online! I wasn’t looking for a partner though. I already had one of those!

    Gina Stoneheart, who blogs at Walking in the Write Direction, one Story at a Time, shared her story of meeting a friend on Twitter through following the same favourite children’s book author. They live close enough to meet up in person. She also met her partner online.

    However she did have some words of caution. She said,

    “Make sure you have spoken with them on the phone and have had quite a few emails exchanged. Also, see lots of pictures of them! You never know… there are some crazy people out there!”

    ndetavi-lc

    Although, like Joanne citing geography as a restriction, Gina’s strong recommendation was to ‘go for it’.

    Terry Tyler, blogging at Terry Tyler, said that she had met a few online friends in real life and had even “ended up marrying one!”  Although Terry said that meeting online friends wasn’t something she would go out of her way to do, when she does meet them she really enjoys it.

    Kimmie, who blogs at Stuckinscared, said that she had met some online friends and, although she had felt close to them online, she was still nervous about meeting them face-to-face but is glad that she did; and would meet others if  “courage and circumstances” allowed it.

    Hope of Nanny SheCanDo has met quite a few of her online friends and is glad she did; and Donna Marie from Writer Side UP! said that she has many online friends she would love to meet up with if she had the chance.

    https://openclipart.org/image/800px/svg_to_png/192642/Children_holding_hands.png
    https://openclipart.org/image/800px/svg_to_png/192642/Children_holding_hands.png

    The only one (from the little group that I was thinking about contacting) to respond to my question was Geoff Le Pard who blogs at TanGental. He was enthusiastic because, he said, he loves meeting people and talking. He suggested there would be risks such as people not being as articulate in person and jeopardizing the relationship that had already formed. But he also said there would be the benefit of not being constrained by the ‘blog and comment structure’ so the conversation could be more organic, flowing from one topic to another.

    The eight responses to my question were overwhelmingly encouraging so I decided to go for it.

    I was delighted to receive an enthusiastic response to my rather tentative request from all four friends that I contacted: Anne Goodwin, Lisa Reiter, Geoff Le Pard, and Caroline Lodge. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to arrange a suitable time or place with Caroline, but Anne, Lisa, Geoff and I exchanged a flurry of Tweets and emails and were able to arrange a time and place that suited us all.

    Norah, Anne, Geoff, Lisa beside the lock
    Norah, Anne, Geoff, Lisa beside the lock

    We had a wonderful afternoon and evening together, meeting at the British Library for lunch and doing a little sightseeing afterwards. I even “took” them somewhere that none of them had been before (and probably won’t again!) I got to see a canal lock in action for the first time! (We don’t have those in Australia.)

    https://openclipart.org/image/800px/svg_to_png/2759/johnny_automatic_angry_guy_with_axe.png
    https://openclipart.org/image/800px/svg_to_png/2759/johnny_automatic_angry_guy_with_axe.png

    It was great: more like catching up with old friends than a meeting of strangers. There was not an axe murderer among us, and no one made an excuse for a hurried retreat until after a tube ride to Covent Garden and dinner, when it was time to catch the late trains back home.

    For me, meeting up with this group of online friends, was a memorable experience which I am very pleased I took a risk in initiating. I think the reason it worked is that we already knew each other quite well through our lengthy online discussions, and we were all keen to meet. The friendship moved out of the imagination and into reality.

    Anne, Geoff and Lisa and a floating bookshop
    Anne, Geoff and Lisa and a floating bookshop

    These positive feelings gave me the confidence to arrange a meeting with another online friend when I travelled to Tasmania shortly after arriving home from the UK. I met up with Sue Wyatt who hosts a Student Blogging Challenge. Although Sue and I hadn’t had a great number of in-depth conversations, we had exchanged a few Tweets and comments and had a lovely morning together discussing two of our shared interests: education and blogging!

    So, combining the recommendations in the responses to my questions with the results of my action research, I would agree strongly with Geoff who finished his comment with the words:

    “Depends on your attitude to taking risks. Personally I’d welcome the chance of the upside.

    It was definitely an upside for me, and I’m pleased I took the chance.

    Thank you

     

    I welcome your feedback. Please share your thoughts. It’s not too late to tell us about meeting your online friends!