Blogging as Lifelong Learning
While reading blogs may certainly contribute to one’s education, blogging itself is also a form of life-long learning. Writing about anything means understanding it in order to express yourself clearly about it; you need to learn about it first, experience it in a way, and reflect on it before you can effectively share your thoughts about it.
Even the briefest blog post may be preceded by hours or days of reading or mulling over a topic. There will be times when not much, if anything at all, will have been written about your idea – as was the case with my previous post, linking the Olympic motto to blogging. I could not find a single online resource applying the “faster, higher, stronger” maxim to blogging. I was thrilled that no one had written about blogging from that particular vantage point in the past.
Yes, blogging can be thrilling – and thought provoking. Was the allusion eccentric I thought? Or was it simply creative? Either way, on such occasions, a few clicks later, and the post is published. On the other hand, for more ordinary topics, there will be more information out there than you can handle. You need to be selective. Wading through tonnes of others’ online pronouncements on an issue is not always a zappy experience; it can be slow and painstaking. One article leads to another; one video leads to another, and so on and so forth. You compare against your prior learning and experience. Ideas flow. Some sink in; others drop out. New insights form. You shape your new ideas, you shape and reshape the text through which you will express them; you check your word choices for accuracy and appropriacy; you reflect on your choices, semantically and pragmatically, then you share. Repeatedly, you go through this process. Now if that is not lifelong learning, then what is?
Posted by May Mikati on 12 August 2012, 5:13 PM
While reading blogs may certainly contribute to one’s education, blogging itself is also a form of life-long learning. Writing about anything means understanding it in order to express yourself clearly about it; you need to learn about it first, experience it in a way, and reflect on it before you can effectively share your thoughts about it.
Even the briefest blog post may be preceded by hours or days of reading or mulling over a topic. There will be times when not much, if anything at all, will have been written about your idea – as was the case with my previous post, linking the Olympic motto to blogging. I could not find a single online resource applying the “faster, higher, stronger” maxim to blogging. I was thrilled that no one had written about blogging from that particular vantage point in the past.
Yes, blogging can be thrilling – and thought provoking. Was the allusion eccentric I thought? Or was it simply creative? Either way, on such occasions, a few clicks later, and the post is published. On the other hand, for more ordinary topics, there will be more information out there than you can handle. You need to be selective. Wading through tonnes of others’ online pronouncements on an issue is not always a zappy experience; it can be slow and painstaking. One article leads to another; one video leads to another, and so on and so forth. You compare against your prior learning and experience. Ideas flow. Some sink in; others drop out. New insights form. You shape your new ideas, you shape and reshape the text through which you will express them; you check your word choices for accuracy and appropriacy; you reflect on your choices, semantically and pragmatically, then you share. Repeatedly, you go through this process. Now if that is not lifelong learning, then what is?
Posted by May Mikati on 12 August 2012, 5:13 PM
