Week 1 Summary - Blogmania

In week one I played with 4 blog types:

1. Blogger (this one) - very intuitive and easy to set up.
2. Wordpress - found this difficult to navigate and gave up - I have no patience. Liked the look of it though ie. the design.
3. iweb on my Mac (http://web.me.com/rachel_reed/MidwifeThinking/Blog/Blog.html). The blog feature of iweb doesn't have all the inbuilt widgets but maybe less is more. I did find a site for widgets here: http://www.widgetbox.com/list/most_popular. But, I like the clean look of iweb and it is very easy to use.
4. Blackboard at the university. I have set up blogs for the new midwifery students as a way for them to gather evidence for their 'portfolio' - I will see how it goes.

I have also subscribed to a handful of diverse blogs from participants of this course and worked out how to get the updates to turn up in my email account. I'm looking forward to following others on this online journey of discovery.

Online Conferencing - tick

Took part in an online conference (introduction) yesterday evening. I have avoided this ?platform ?tool whatever the term is for a long time. However, I now feel confident taking part in future online conferences (thanks). I also discovered I can talk to my Mac and other people can hear me! I still have no idea how or where the microphone is though. It was great hearing the other participants who are a very diverse and interesting crowd.

Blogging is weird. I feel a bit like I am talking to myself (or my Mac). I'm not used to this format but can see some fantastic potential. In the spirit of putting all this into practice I have set up blogs on the uni blackboard site for the Masters of Midwifery students. This can be another way for them to provide evidence of reflection on practice and a fun way to share their learning and experience. I won't make it mandatory but it will be interesting to see if any take it up as an option and see where it goes.

ps. the baby arrived last night.

OK I've signed up for this Online Facilitating course. Not sure it was the right thing to do. It took me 3 attempts to get the squiggly words correct and prove I wasn't a computer. Now what?