Reflective Post (Thing 9)

#Rudai23

So, time for reflection again. This is something strange for me, so I took a break from blogging and stayed away from my blog, Facebook and other social-media platforms for a couple of days, rather like when one goes on a religious retreat, you are cut off from modern life and it gives you time to reflect on your life.

I’ve finished the first 8 things of the Rudai 23 course but I realised very quickly after doing Thing 8 that I didn’t like the outcome so I did another one.  (Now, I know at this stage during the reflective process I’m not supposed to make judgement but I wanted to retry the exercise to see could I do better and am a little happier with the outcome).  In general, I’ve really enjoyed blogging, it’s something I’ve wanted to do for a couple of years so got the perfect opportunity to do it now.  

Thing 3 - I have already covered in my reflective blog here, it was a good lesson and meshed together my experience and knowledge well. 

Thing 7 - Creating an exhibition was great fun, it can be viewed here.  This is very useful for showing a series of images on a given topic, perhaps showcase some old reference or local collection items in the library, show a series of photos taken at an event or a series of photos taken at an actual exhibition.  I will definitely do an on-line exhibition again.  On the page above I also created a short how-to video on finding material on our digital archive.

Thing 8 - Creating an infographic was great fun also.  As the nature of online activity revolves around images these are a great way of getting information seen.  It can be clearly seen on social media that posts with links and images outrank other types of posts in numbers reached and engaged.  With limited time and attention span for your post to get noticed by the viewer, images via exhibitions and infographics are so important.  My first attempt at an infographic was not very good as I didn't put enough thought into the message I wanted to get out and didn't have my information collected properly so I did it again here about my favourite author Stephen King 

I’ve had really good experiences with most of the exercises except for Thing 5 where I couldn’t get any of the suggested programs to download due to firewall and privacy settings in work.  During my blogging I noticed that images kept disappearing.  I figured how to resolve the problem and the solution is here. This was frustrating but I loved finding a solution. 

The main lesson I learnt is to have your information, images and ideas well organised and prepared.  Also rereading and editing your post a few times before publishing is important.  I actually type my blog in word beforehand for two reasons...

1.    So it’s not sitting on my blog website where I can accidently post it before it’s finished

2.    To perform spellcheck, grammar check and layout.

To judge how successful my blog is, I’ve considered the look of my blog, the accessibility and ease of ability to read it and how easy it is to search my blog for particular posts & themes.  I’ve played around with the template to

1.    Make the colours and size of font easier to read

2.    Remove a distracting background image and colours behind the text

3.    Have a accessible sidebar with all the important information about me and the blog.

Here is an example of the evolution of the sidebar...

My sidebar is now visible all the time (previously you had to click on a menu), my avatar is on top, contact email, labels to help viewers find topics immediately and then the monthly timeline after that.  I’ve also removed the use of colour for the most part.

The final analysis is right in my wheelhouse, I’ve been keeping track of my stats (stats do NOT include my own visits) and was delighted to hit over 1000 page views on 31^st October 2017 so that’s a success for a month of blogging!

Blogging is a great way for one to get your thoughts on paper and share them with the world.  From a nerds point of view it’s the perfect medium to communicate my hobby and passion to other like-minded people.  I also like following other blogs, this is a great way to help filter stuff you are interested in, not like Facebook who decide what you should see – including adverts.  After the course I will continue blogging on all things Sci-fi, Horror, Fantasy, Gaming and Scrabble.  Before I started blogging I already knew what I would be blogging about so this helps to keep to a theme.  For people just starting the course without a clear idea where there blog was going it would be more difficult – kind of like not seeing the woods because of the trees.

In future blogging, I will prepare my information and content better beforehand and pay more attention in creating an easy-to-read blog that is visually attractive and interesting.  Ultimately, like Facebook and Twitter, content is King so ensuring the best quality content is the most important “Thing”.