2010–05–08

Further fretting about blogging and the Open University.
Why do we do it?

blogging

Now that I’m at the click-face and thinking about what I’m going to write I’m beginning to think that this piece might not be about blogging at all. Let me, try to, explain.

I spend way too much time online reading other peoples’ thoughts and writing up my own. Or do I? A while ago I would have said that the previous sentence was a given but now I’m not so sure. And the reason that I’m not so sure is because I’ve been reading other students’ blogs. Specifically H800 blogs.

Creating a blog seems to be a part of the course requirements for H800 so they are all over the the OU personal-blogo-sphere and despite myself I’ve gotten sucked in. I don’t fancy the course myself but it does tick a few of my boxes—I work in a school where I see many, many, expensive [failed, failed] attempts at computer distance-learning and I’m a distance-learner myself. I’m also a long-time follower of Sarah Horrigan’s blog where I think that the definitive statement about Virtual Learning Environments has been made:

[A sort-of quote] A VLE is as good if its content is good even if it’s a piece of crap [as a technology] and vice versa.

Excluded middle!

And there we have it—it doesn’t matter how we do something: education, blogging, chips…if it’s boring it’s boring and won’t work even if it works according how the providers meant it to work. [Chips without salt?]

being unfair…

The rat of worry that has been gnawing at the rear of my head has been that I think that the H800 bloggers don’t get that. As I said unfair. But let explain where I’m coming from.

Despite the baroque shambles that this site is in the end I believe in simplicity—if it isn’t simple it’s not right. I’ve tried to make this site minimal in every way that I can, I’ve failed, but I tried. But in the end it isn’t about how the site looks/works it’s about whether what I write is interesting, is relevant, is read.

It isn’t an ego thing. I’m happy enough typing gibberish that’s only ever going to be read by me, I could just write a pen and paper diary if that was what I was setting out to do. I have higher aspirations. As [I assume] do the H800 bloggers.

We have a duty to be interesting. And a lot of the H800 bloggers are derelict. Don’t get me wrong, I subscribe to many insanely technical blogs, but I know what I’m in for, I’m not adverse to ‘difficult content’, what I am adverse to people who are interested in promoting distance learning boring me into a stupor. Clive [in system only] has done more for philosophy than any H800 blogger has done for distance learning.

You aren’t getting it H800ers!

a nasty rant?

Probably. But they’ve put their heads over the parapet, they’ve got to expect others to have attitudes. My attitude is stop writing for your tutor and start writing for me!

I’ve a feeling that what I’ve just written is wrong, unfocused and unjudged. I dislike unfocused but the other two don’t bother me too much, and I am me.