Tuesday, June 30, 2009

It took me about 2 weeks to sit down and write this post

And it is all very ironic.


In 2008, I posted on this blog 369 times. How in the world I did that, I don't know! In half of 2009, I've only come up with 52 posts. I feel like a failure, even though I've stuck to my resolution of posting photos on The View Across Town every day.

I've mentioned before that Twitter has made it more difficult for me to find the time (okay, maybe find the effort) to write a whole post on here. I do feel like I'm a bit crazy to be able to keep up with this blog, the photo blog, Facebook, Etsy, Twitter, my school email, yahoo email, gmail email, school website ... and my offline world! Somehow I do it all, but it still takes time.

Now that I'm following over 200 people on Twitter (many of them now in my PLN - Personal Learning Network), there are MANY links that are tweeted that I click on and then find time to read later. Well, 2 weeks ago, I clicked on two interesting articles about the downfall of blogging due to Twitter's popularity. I finally read them today and realized that these articles could have been written about me ... but I hope that doesn't happen to me. Here they are:



Go read them. Not all of you will find them interesting, but seeing as how you are reading my blog (and maybe you've complained to me that I haven't been writing enough), you might find them worth the read.

Some people don't understand Twitter and why you would care to read what people are doing throughout their days. While much of Twitter is people Tweeting with a "Don't u hate using public bathrooms .......", that isn't really the stuff I'm interested in reading. I've found an online network of other educators (4th grade teachers, SPED teachers, autism advocates, technology teachers, principals, etc) that post meaningful links, ideas and suggestions. I've thrown a question out there like, "Suggestions for where to seat a student who talks nonstop to her peers? She's looking for attention." The response is immediate and starts a great discussion between educators.

Don't get me wrong ... I've also shared lots about my daily minutia like, "I guess it's time to actually get out of bed since my schnoodle is growling at me & I am tutoring in just 45 min. Bed, I'll miss you :("

I know that not everyone cares and that is why you don't have to respond to everything that everyone writes. You can quickly skim by it when the Tweets are 140 characters or less! Mom said the other day that she thinks Twitter is narcissistic and is is ridiculous of people on Twitter to think that anyone cares what they are doing throughout the day. Well ... she may be right about part of that. HOWEVER, can't we say that Twitter is just a shortened version of Blogging??? Why do I think that anyone cares about anything that I post? Well, if they don't care, then they don't need to read it. I can tell when people aren't reading or really don't care about what I've posted because there aren't any comments. Days will go by without comments on this blog and even the photo blog. I'm not offended. I can tell that people are still reading.

Anyhoo ... I just wanted to share these articles and to let you all know that I'm still here. I think part of the difficulty in me sitting down and posting is now that I've been taking photos EVERY DAY, I feel the need to share some of those photos and that just takes a little bit longer.

I will try and I hope that if you are interested in what I'm writing, you should comment and let me know. If you hate it, let me know that, too!

Happy Blogging to all ... or maybe just Happy Twittering to those of you that have fallen off the blogging bandwagon with me!

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4 comments:

Laura said...

I don't know if you've downloaded Picasa- the free photo program powered by Google- but you can directly upload photos to blogger that way and just save the draft from there- saves alot of time downloading them from Blogger. It might be quicker for you on your other blog...just a thought!! But I'm still reading your blog...hope people are still reading mine!

The Lunds said...

I can't read your "tweets" now and I'm not cool enough for Twitter. I have a phone that only makes phone calls. Now what?

Bets said...

Thanks for the tip, Laura.

Molls, my Tweets aren't private anymore since the spam followers finally left me alone :)

Carrie said...

I have to say I kind of agree with your mom about Twitter. (I also thought the same thing about blogging at first). I don't like Facebook either. No one has enough time to keep up with all of these latest social networking sites BUT at least with blogs I don't feel like I missed something. I check my FB account every couple of days but I don't go back and read what everyone posted so really I just get who posted last which is usually, "Just ate some nachos" or "what was the bachelorette thinking?" and really I could think of much better ways to spend my time. Like reading witty and interesting blogs!