Only three more activities – including this one – to complete the 31 Days to Build a Better Blog by ProBlogger Blog Tips. For this one we were asked to How to Use a Magazine to Improve Your Blog [Day 24: 31DBBB]. The basic notion that Darren tasked us with was to take a look at a magazine in our field and examine it for ways it could contribute to our blogs in terms of marketing ideas, design ideas, post ideas, learning about our niche, writing tips, monetization lessons, and reader engagement. As there is no specific K-12 online learning magazine, I selected a magazine that recent ran a special issue on K-12 online learning as the one I examined.
The magazine that I selected was Threshold Magazine, which is a publication of Cable in the Classroom, specifically their Fall 2008 edition (note that the magazine is available online, but I used a paper copy I have for the completion of this activity – as I thought that was more what Darren had in mind).
In looking at each of Darren’s categories…
Marketing Ideas
Well, there were a couple of things that stood out to me on this front as I read through the magazine. The first was the branding, and this mainly came from the adverts throughout the magazine. The way that various companies and products branded their names. The second was the use of images (something I’ve discussed in Day 17 of this journey). The final one was the colour, particularly in the text (and really noticeable with section headings).
Design Ideas
There are two things that really stand out to me as I read through the articles in this issue: images and sections. As I have been trying to do a little more of in these past few days, it appears that on at least every second page is an image to accompany the text. In most cases this image is simply an icon that is related to the article (or even that particular section of text), but really adds little to the content – beyond breaking up the text. Very much like the “31 days” image I have above. The second was the use of section headers to break up the articles. In most cases, I don’t believe that my entries are long enough to warrant this. But it does help with the organization. For example, in this I have broken up my discussion of Darren’s seven areas with little headers in italics as a way to section off the entry. While the entry isn’t that long and there isn’t a lot of text, it does appeal a little more to the eye I think.
Post Ideas
Well, the obvious post idea would be to simply write an entry that was a commentary on the eight K-12 online learning articles that appeared in that edition. Another take on that same idea would be to write an entry that was a commentary of each of the eight articles in that issue. On a larger scale, I could begin to write future entries that are commentaries of the various academic and research articles that I read as a part of my own keeping up with the literature. At present, I do post publication notices when I find new articles (see Publication Notice: High School Teachers’ Course Designs And Their Professional Knowledge Of Online Teaching as the most recent example); however, I rarely write any commentary on these items or portions of these items (e.g., Cyber Charter School Research and Selective Conclusions About Charters were rare examples).
Learning about our Niche
I’m not sure what I learned about my niche that I didn’t already know. Being actively involved in K-12 online learning for the past eleven years now, I’ve held a variety of roles. I’ve started by designing online courses and teaching in a couple of different virtual schools. Because of my online teaching, I began to play around with some teacher-style, action research – which eventually led to my career as an academic and K-12 online learning being the main focus of my research. I had the opportunity to be an administrator at the district-level of a province-wide K-12 online learning program, and then later worked (for a very brief period) in administration with a private virtual school enterprise. So, having been a virtual school course designer/developer, teacher, administrator and research – spanning over an 11 year period – there isn’t a lot that I haven’t come across with the field of K-12 online learning, and most of my work now is focused on keeping up with my niche (as it is ever changing). I suppose if I had to respond to this category when the issue first came out last Fall, my comments may have been different as there were some new voices in this issue (one of the difficulties of using an older issue I think).
Writing Tips
Two things I noticed about the article were that they tended to be written for a practitioner audience (which makes perfect sense given the nature of the publication) and for people who were not currently part of the K-12 online learning community. This second one was of particular interest for me, as I try to make sure that over the span of my entries that there are things for both practitioners and academics (which I think would cover the first one). I’ll be honest and say that most – if not all – of my entries are written for people who are already involved or already interested in K-12 online learning. Rarely do I write entries that are described to draw people in who don’t have some existing connection to this community.
Monetization Lessons
As I don’t make money form this blog and have no interest in doing so, this category was not relevant to me.
Reader Engagement
This is a tough one, as the biggest difference I noticed between how the authors of each of the articles tried to engage readers and how I try to engage readers was the writing style. The writing in this magazine, even with its practitioner focus, was much more formal (even academic) in nature. The writing style that I try to maintain for the entries that I write tends to be more informal and conversational – almost as if I am thinking out loud through my blog. I do that deliberately, as I feel that if I wrote for my blog the same way I write for publication it wouldn’t be as great an interest or accessible by as wide an audience as the current style (and not as much fun for me, as this is my chance to let my hair down (what remains) – at least in terms of my writing).
So, that’s it for another task in the 31 Days to Build a Better Blog. Two more and then I am finished with that journey.
