Why Don’t Trainers Blog – Revisited

Following my contribution to training zone’s blog I was asked today for my views on how trainers could benefit from blogging and reasons why they don’t.

I believe that trainers have an enormous amount to gain from blogging including;

The opportunity to become a member of a community of practice

Networking with others

Connecting and sharing views with colleagues and thought leaders

Having personal views challenged

Learning, learning & some more learning

Sharing knowledge

Supporting others development & their informal learning

Supporting the formulation of thoughts

Contributing towards the personal CPD journey and benefiting from emergent learning

Improvement of personal communication skills

Some suggestions why I feel trainers don’t blog (although I feel that more are now than were 6 months ago) include;

Fear

Lack of time

Blogging is not a priority & not valued

Lack of ICT skills

Blogging links to the threat of increased ICT use and the decrease of face to face events

Blogging and social networking contradict the traditional view that when a resource is created it is owned and for use by the individual or 1 organisation. I believe that ideas and information should be open source (as open source software) and then available for everyone to share and benefit from.

I’m sure there are many more reasons for trainers to blog and reasons why they don’t.

What do you think?

CIPD Blog

So CIPD have started a blog

Topics include; ageism, migrant workers, and the minimum wage.

I wonder if members will participate????

Women Edubloggers

Great list of women edubloggers here from Janet Clarey. She should be on the list too!

Blogs in plain English

I love the simplicity of this…..

Virtual Friendship and the New Narcissism

 Here’s an extract from a great post from The new Atlantis     via George

“Although social networking sites are in their infancy, we are seeing their impact culturally: in language (where to friend is now a verb), in politics (where it is de rigueur for presidential aspirants to catalogue their virtues on MySpace), and on college campuses (where not using Facebook can be a social handicap). But we are only beginning to come to grips with the consequences of our use of these sites: for friendship, and for our notions of privacy, authenticity, community, and identity. As with any new technological advance, we must consider what type of behavior online social networking encourages. Does this technology, with its constant demands to collect (friends and status), and perform (by marketing ourselves), in some ways undermine our ability to attain what it promises—a surer sense of who we are and where we belong? The Delphic oracle’s guidance was know thyself. Today, in the world of online social networks, the oracle’s advice might be show thyself.”

8 Random Facts Meme

I’ve been tagged by Janet Clarey on the 8 random facts meme

First, the Rules:
1) Post these rules before you give your facts
2) List 8 random facts about yourself
3) At the end of your post, choose (tag) 8 people and list their names, linking to them
4) Leave a comment on their blog, letting them know they’ve been tagged

So here are the 8 facts

1) I love the sunshine and growing vegetables

2) I believe learning is what it’s all about

3) I have 4 cats, Flora, Pixie, Charlotte and Conker

4) I started going grey when I was 21 and decided not to dye my hair (Why is it that everyone dyes their hair?)

5) I hate dressing up – I’m  happiest in shorts & T Shirt

6) I am really softly spoken

7) I love to think, reflect and create new things

I am the eldest of 9 children and one of my sisters is Eve (she’s been tagged below)

My tags are;

Eve

Brian

George

Kelly

Mohamed

Michael

Tony

Don

Why Trainers don’t blog (continued)

Graham O’Connell referred me to an article on Participation Inequality that gives an interesting perspective on why Trainers don’t blog.

Trainers Blogs

Following on from my post on why don’t Trainers blog, I found this page on pageflakes via Janet. Looks good!

Why don’t Trainers Blog?

Over the last few months I’ve learnt so much via blogging and connecting with others. I’m really grateful to all those people who are listed on my blogroll who have shared ideas and information openly and unconditionally.

Something that I don’t understand is why don’t more trainers and learning & development professionals in the UK blog? I have tried to generate interest via Training Zone by kicking off a blog back in April. I put a post in my blog hoping that this would encourage others to blog and share.

I must be going wrong somewhere or maybe I’m not looking in the right places.

Any ideas?

Goal Meme

I’ve been tagged by Don Taylor http://donaldhtaylor.wordpress.com/2007/05/14/bike-rides-and-the-goal-meme/ for the Goal Meme. The idea is that you outline your goals and then tag 5 more people. My difficulty is so many goals and so little time!!  Here are a few;

Grasp every opportunity to learn

Share, Listen and Collaborate

Aim for balance in all I do

Make time to reflect in order that I value planned and emergent learning

Try not to be too intense (at least once a week!)

My tags are to people whose blogs I value and visit regularly;

George  http://www.elearnspace.org/blog/

Karyn  http://karynromeis.blogspot.com/

Janet  http://brandon-hall.com/weblogs/janetclarey.htm

Kelly http://kwhobbes.edublogs.org/

Richard http://www.brandon-hall.com/weblogs/richardnantel.htm