Blogging is not a very linear process. In some ways, it is like concentric circles, with layers of complexity and customization. In other ways, it is more like a tinker toy model of different pieces that connect to each other in a myriad of ways. This makes blogging interesting but also very challenging to teach. The entire time that I was working on the lessons, up until the moment they were released, I struggled with the order of the topics and how in depth to cover them. I chafed when I had to keep saying wait until week X to answer your questions as some roared on ahead while others needed a lot more details on topics that I barely had time to mention. As our maiden voyage of this course is drawing to a close, I continue to struggle with those questions.
I will be revising this course based upon student evaluations. I always tweak my courses based upon student feedback and most time there is consensus amongst my students. This time I am inviting your feedback in the form of a conversation. I would really like to know what you thought about the order of the topics and the depth with which they were covered. Because this is not a linear topic, I am expecting less consensus in this course. That is evident in the evaluations that I have received so far.
Here are some of the questions that I hope you might tackle in your comments:
- Too much content or not enough?
- Should it be divided into two classes? If so how? personal and business blogging? blog writing and social networking? building a blog and building a theme?
- Did the order of topics make sense? What did you wish you learned earlier or later than was presented?
- What did you wish I had covered in less detail?
- What did you wish I had covered in more detail?
- By waiting to introduce social networking until week 5, do you think you will have enough time to at least try it out before the class ends? Realize that internet social networks, like all networks, take time to develop
Thank you I am looking forward to this discussion
Just one early comment: I wish I had known about rss feeds the first week when we were looking for blogs. I had bookmarked a lot of them, and they are on my other computer. With feeds they would be on-line.
Carol
Thank you Carol, that is exactly the kind of feedback that I am looking for. RSS was originally in week 1 and then I divided it up and ended up some things like feedburner in week 6
Hi Bean and fellow classmates
Although not having posted with frequency, I am working on my blog as time allows, much of what I’ve done still in the Saved But Unpublished chasm. :>
With regard to your questions:
1. Too much content or not enough?
Can there ever be too much content? :>
2. Should it be divided into two classes? If so how? personal and business blogging? blog writing and social networking? building a blog and building a theme?
I am of the opinion there should be two classes: one on installing and developing a blog, touching on social networking but as a minor focus thus developing the path to a second course on the social networking and income-producing aspects.
Some people only want to enjoy the experience of developing a blog and, like me, will disable the search engine function thereby avoiding most anything relating to Lesson 5.
The second course is open to anyone having successfully completed the first course or those who have a blog, or blogs, in progress, the latter of which is by approval from the instructor after viewing the published work to assure it meets the minimum criteria presented in the first course.
3. Did the order of topics make sense? What did you wish you learned earlier or later than was presented?
for the most part, absolutely!
I do thing, though, that ‘effective writing’ needs to come forward to an earlier lesson, at least to some extent. You’re asking people to post entries to their blogs but not giving them the criteria on which to do so productively and proficiently until Lesson 4. Certainly, the topic can be addressed in greater detail, specific to refining their writing skills, later in the course but an introduction at the outset might prove more efficient.
4. What did you wish I had covered in less detail?
Under the presumption of two courses, in-depth treatment of social networking, et. al.
5. What did you wish I had covered in more detail?
In reading board posts, it would seem modifying a chosen theme created a significant number of threads.
It would seem, if two courses were developed, the “introductory” course criteria has to be based upon two levels of students: those who have coding skills and those who don’t. One doesn’t need to understand or be able to modify/create web site code in order to set up and mainatain a blog. For those individuals, a statement to the effect that the theme they select will include the components developed by that theme’s designer, with certain exceptions.
For the others, however, a quick overview of how to manipulate php functions to avoid having to download and install basic widgets would be valuable. Besides, this might just whet our appetites to learn more about PHP. [wink]
Additionally, I read a couple of posts where the question regarding the location of the “.html file” was asked. It’s more than likely I missed the answer, as it would seem I still have a few hundred unread posts in my in-box. [huge grin]
The more information covered in the lessons, both regarding pitfalls as well as the benefits of theme modification, the less extraneous and non-productive time will be spent by students researching outside your course material, thus giving you more control over where we roam.
Student participation is welcomed and encouraged in any classroom environment and, certainly, given the subject matter of the Blogging class, it is crucial. However, if a question or concern can be readily addressed and resolved by the instructor, either in the lesson material or on the board, the potential for excess frustration is mitigated, leaving time and energy for developing the blog.
6. By waiting to introduce social networking until week 5, do you think you will have enough time to at least try it out before the class ends? Realize that internet social networks, like all networks, take time to develop
Not really, which is why the suggestion of the second course devoted to this topic I believe to be a viable option.
I truly appreciated the way you sectionalized your material for WP-hosted and self-hosted blogs. That was a huge advantage when studying the lessons. HUGE I tell you! :>
Even with a comment here, you still want students to fill out the formal Course Evaluation linked from the Classroom Page, right?
Thanks!
Well, I would like more on building a theme. Either as part of a separate class or a separate class altogether. I’ve been doing it but I bet that Bean has a few pointers that would make it so much easier!
Oh, and maybe some more explanation on tagging.
Thanks Deb and Anna,
I am definitely hearing about the desire for more on theme customization. Now about that 30 hour day…
And yes the formal course evaluation goes to the school as well as me. They need to know what is working and where we can improve.
Since I’m lost in how to redo all my posts to have tags and starting social networking, I’m feeling overwhelmed right now. Still haven’t figured out the differences of tag/category and trackbacks/pingback so re-reading bunches. However, I probably have a couple worthwhile ideas left;O)
I thought I knew what I wanted from blogging, and it’s now a completely different direction, and am SO VERY glad I learned enough to make some critical decisions so I didn’t waste my time. I really think the focus on the course would be better presented in two classes as suggested by Deb. I really appreciated the depth given in this course, however, I’ve quickly learned it’s just the tip of the iceberg regarding blogging. There seems to always be a bit more Bean has to teach but was constrained by volume. The basics I believe could be more developed. Another thought I had is because I’m a geek at heart and tend to forget there are folks like my hubby out there. They’d like to keep in touch with family or are just getting a computer for Christmas, and are proud they can turn the machine on and receive email. I think if the classes are divided, it would be a great thing to have the basic course be just that, start very basic to getting the blog set up and running well. I know there are many who ran ahead and such, but they were experienced and would not need to take that course. However, I think a lot of beginners would benefit greatly, even if only to find out if that’s really what they want to do or not. Those with experience can jump right in to the advanced class (ie they have their blog running already). I even have the titles….Blogging for Fun, and second is Blogging for Fame and Fortune….see that was so easy;O)
As for the social networking, I’m totally lost and overwhelmed, which is partly why I will not be using blog for business as I’d thought when I entered this class. I think it will actually prove to be wonderful for my genealogy and family news needs, but I would need to spend more time “socializing” that needs to go to developing the business aspects and product. Awesome lesson to learn, and makes me forever grateful.
Thank you for taking the time to articulate your desires. It gives me and the school a lot to think about in terms of direction. Now I am wishing that I added a question asking if there is only blog class, what would you want that one blog class to contain?
Hehe it is looking like we need to recruit some blogging instructors!
I think this class was awesome and proceeded in an orderly fashion. Some things were fairly easy for me as I already had a blog with widgets and had messed with that theme a lot. Also because I took the web building classes here. I can see where that could be hard coming into cold.
I knew about much of the last lesson from lots of reading to put ads on my other blog but the networking stuff I found overwhelming and confusing. I still don’t think my blog is listed at blogarama. In fact, if they aren’t going to list me I’m going to take the link to them off of my page
Not your fault it’s confusing btw. Just getting used to how each of those sites functions.
I think the social networking was fine as week 5 for a couple of reasons. First, we all have the option of staying in touch now that we are networked so we can still learn and help each other. If that had been taught earlier I think it would have been a huge distraction from the basic getting your blog up and running. I say that because I’m still trying to figure out how I’m going to keep up with Google Reader, technorati, blogarama, blogcatalog, delicious, magnolia, stumbleit, and God knows what else I added!
I like the concept of this all being one class but I think it’s so much information that it really would be better split into two. Maybe the basic set up your blog, themes, self hosting, writing skills, tags, headlines all that in one and a second to concentrate on the social networking and the potential for making money. You could go so much more in depth in all areas that way.
With that said, I am completely impressed with the course you put together and we were a huge class which made it even crazier for all involved.
As to your last comment. If there was only one class I would want it to contain everything it did
Anita
Where to start?
Well, as has been said before, there are two sorts of students. The html-literate and the not. Again you could divide the students in a different way – those with wordpress-hosted and those not.
I suggest that you ask the students in the next group also, Bean. I think this group would be atypical, as you were sick. When the group was leaderless for a little while it seemed to totally lose momentum.
Coming out of that, – I think there needs to be even MORE emphasis on the importance of visiting blogs and commenting. I have visited most of the class blogs & commented, but not so many have visited mine. This is true out in the blgosphere, of course. It’s disapointing when you write a nice juicy post, visit 20 or 20 blogs & comment. Then nobody visits your blog. For example, my post a few days ago about Danny Gregory has been visited by Danny himself (!!!!) and only one class member.
I think the writing lesson needs to be moved forward. I had hoped to get feedback about format & writing, throughout, but I only got feedback about the writing after lesson 6 had been posted (atypical, as I said.)
The social networking lesson was fantastic, but overwhelming & I haven’t got a handle on it all yet (and I’ve been blogging since last October). It would probably be better divided into two lessons.
Oh, and I also don’t understand the difference between categories and tags. At first I thought that a tag was a subset of a category, but now I just don’t understand the relationship between them.
So, as to 1 course or 2 – I think two is better. The social networking would be better earlier in the course also, to have more time for networking – but then again, you need all those set-up lessons beforehand. I think what Susie said is good, about how to divide them.
There is obviously a LOT of material on how to blog. I think the work may have been more overwhelming for those who hadn’t blogged before, don’t know html, and particularly if they weren’t using wordpress for a host. I think there seems to be enough material for two courses, and spreading what WE learnt out a little might give the students more time to visit blogs.
I agree about 2 courses, BUT, don’t have the intro course in June and then a 3 month wait for the second one. That would lose the momentum. Only have the first course when it can be immediately followed by the second.
Bean has been VERY responsive to us on the very busy forum and this is a necessary part of the learning process. So, the instructor needs the time to do it.
That’s it for now.
Carol
1. Too much content/not enough:
I agree that there can never be too much content, but a
listing up front in each lesson outlining the main topics in each lesson
with internal links to text that follows would be useful for the course and as well as subsequent review. I must admit that I prefer lessons in html format.
2. Two classes:
The mechanics would appear to be the first order of business for Course No. 1,
and the writing techniques/social networking for Course 2.
3. Order of Topics
The order seemed logical
4. Covered in less detail
Social Networking
5. Covered in more detail
Methods for displaying images to enhance blogs.
Also, where should images be stored such as online albums or on host site, linking image from the file stored on the host. Only in the last week of this course was I aware of my host providing “online photo filer” ..even * NEW! Post your photos to Quick Blogcast – fast – with “Blog This Photo.” Essentially I have used Picassa which enabled selecting images and uploading to Google Picassa Album. I have just started to recognize the many methods images can be displayed for blogging.
Sammy
Links provided in the lessons are very valuable. The more the better.
The course material was fantastic and the responses and comments were most valuable in the learning experience.
I would be interested in retaking the course next year for a review, especially if you have more than one course on the topic of blogging.
Thanks for all the effort you put into the course. That effort really shows up in the weekly lessons.
My thoughts have been pretty much covered in previous posts. What I would like to see covered in more detail – the importance of tags and ping backs, what/where/why. Also, an index would be of enormous help. Overall, this was a massive amount of info that could easily be turned into 2 classes. Good job Bean!
Peggy
I have to begin my comments by explaining the obvious that I am not qualified to have an opinion about the entire course because I will be working on these lessons after the course closes. So I will comment on where I am so far.
* Too much content or not enough?
I had posted a blog on Blogger previous to this course which while easy to do, was nothing like the experience of all there is to learn. Just because I got bogged down in trying to set up a self hosted blog doesn’t mean that I thought there was too much content. I was thrilled and excited by the quality and content of this written course, the quality of the instructor’s responses and the quality of the other people in this course.
I would have liked to have taken more time to post responses on more blogger’s posts. I was delighted to see that there are several artists in the course and I intend to keep up with their blogs even though I have barely posed on them so far.
The ONLY reason I did not make more comments was because I spent hours in boring and time consuming things like trying to set up my self-hosted blog in a sub directory in a web hosted place that I already have and they did not have the latest and greatest tools. Added to that is not knowing what I didn’t know. But that too was a big learning experience. I had no clue about what I was getting into. And this is not a complaint. Even though I have no where near finished all the assignments because I have to do some over after switching my blog, I am grateful for all that I did learn even if some of it was something I did not want to learn or know that I needed to.
* Should it be divided into two classes? If so how? personal and business blogging? blog writing and social networking? building a blog and building a theme?
From my perspective I think I would not have wasted so much time if I had known the difference between a WordPress hosted Blog and a Self-hosted blog. I was naive about that and began with the WP hosted one. When I saw all the issues that people were having in setting up their blogs I became intimidated and decided to stay with the WP hosted Blog, mainly because I was more interested in learning all the things presented in the course and didn’t want to get slowed down with setting up the new system. That was a mistake. I paid dearly for not doing that in the first place. I know Bean urged me to jump right in when she saw what I was trying to do — and I haven’t even really begun to show that. I have a lot more material to post. So if there are two courses I think they should be one the WordPress hosted and one for the Self-hosted. Perhaps there could be a description on the LVS board giving the prospective student details on what the differences are and what to be prepared for.
I know people who have Blogger hosted blogs and they blog away in total contentment without doing another thing to get people to read their blogs. I have told everyone I know who is interested in blogging to take this course and they simply don’t get it. But if they took the easier course – i.e. the WP hosted one, and perhaps could be able to read the posts of the Self-hosted blogs then they would be inspired – or not – to take the second course.
I agree with the person who said that if there are two courses they should not be separated by the break in the Summer. I wish I could do another blog course here starting next week.
* Did the order of topics make sense? What did you wish you learned earlier or later than was presented?
The order was fine for me except for what I mentioned about in not knowing what I didn’t know.
* What did you wish I had covered in less detail?
Nothing.
* What did you wish I had covered in more detail?
I would like to know more about changing the design of a theme. That’s another thing that has slowed me down in my homework. I want my own header design and no one else’s will do. I have spent hours on that while neglecting some important other things in the class. I know nothing about php so am working in the dark almost. But that may belong in yet another course. As Bean says, she doesn’t have a 30 hour week. And neither do we.
If there is only only one course I could have benefited by understanding more more about the differences in the two kinds of blogs.
* By waiting to introduce social networking until week 5, do you think you will have enough time to at least try it out before the class ends? Realize that internet social networks, like all networks, take time to develop.
I’m not there yet and I want to be. I’m relieved to see that Bean will keep the blogs going so I can check in on what people are doing. And hopefully, if I have questions there will be people to respond.
It sounds sort of silly in a way for me to say, “This is the best course ever,” when I am so behind. I also feel it is not fair to say, “This is he best course ever,” because all but one instructor of all the courses I have taken with LVS were ALL fabulous! Maybe I should say, that at this time, for me, this is the best possible class I could take. I am going to take it again. Who knows, I may just keep on keeping on taking this class.
All that being said, I hope to post more stuff in the next few days. Bean never commented on my postings for the writing part. And I lost my pings and Blog Roll when I switched over but that’s part of my huge ToDo list. So if you do comment, wait until I post again.
The class was fantastic and I would love to take it again if divided into two courses. But like Carol mentioned, don’t have the intro class in May and the follow-up in September.
I am lost in the networking world with joining some many sites, I’m not sure where I am or where I am going because they are all different. I personally didn’t have enough time to explore each site like I wanted. I have so many questions but naturally I can’t think of one right now. When I do, I will ask it on the board.
I am still trying to associate real names, nicknames, and blog titles. My blogroll is probably out of date because names were changed or blogs were moved and I didn’t have time to read every post on the board to catch all of the changes. But that is my fault and will try to get everything updated soon.
I agree with samtex about the more links the better, but there were so many that I didn’t have time to read the material. But I plan to go back through all of the lessons to catch what I missed.
I am guilty of not reading all of the posts from class members. “Life” seemed to get in the way and I just didn’t have time to keep up with each blog and read the lesson material.
With that said, two courses would be great!
I found the class VERY educational and so full of useful information and resources … I would definitely recommend the course to others.
Okay, I know you’re looking for critical feedback in order to improve upon the great work that is already there, so let’s see what I can offer.
I would like to see a little more white space on the pages so one could make notes and comments. Also having soooo much information crammed on every page seemed somewhat overwhelming sometimes (I often think “how in the world am I going to remember all of this”, just because it ‘looked’ worse than it really was.
Food for thought: I wonder if lessons could be set up to learn in bite-size-chunks. For example break the weekly lesson up into five or seven distinct sections and suggest that each day, one focuses on just that section until they understand it completely. I mean, to be honest, I’m registered on: Technorati / BlogLines / Blogarama / BlogCatalog / MyBlogLog / Ma.gnolia / Digg / Amazon / Google AdSense / Feedburner … and more and the point is there just seemed to be sooo much information that I felt I had to learn all at once that I’d just register, look around for a couple of minutes, get back to my lesson notes, register for the next one, etc., etc., etc. Maybe that’s just me, and no one else had the same problem, but I thought I’d mention it.
As for the amount of content, I’m with some of the others above that say if you were going to break it up into two classes, it would be nice to have part 2 follow immediately after, rather than having a long period in between.
I seemed to peter-out right before lessons 5 and 6 and that is through no fault of the material, but because I came up with a GREAT idea for a new blog that I kind of lost interest in this one. I can’t wait for the next session to start from scratch, as I have thought of nothing else since the idea came to me. LOL (not telling till next semester).
Anyway, great course! I totally enjoyed the company of my lovely classmates and am looking forward to seeing great things from all of you.
Thanks, Sandy
(1) and (2): Although I couldn’t quite keep up with the assignments, I don’t think there was too much content. And I don’t think the class needs to be split into two classes.
I’m not sure which of the topics I would have wanted more on; I was pretty happy with the depth of the lessons.
(3): The order of topics seemed good, but maybe effective writing could be pushed up to an earlier lesson.
(4), (5), and (6): Less on social networking would have been fine by me.
Deb’s thoughtful comments pretty much said it for me. I found that trying to get into the social networking aspect of the class while also trying to learn to customize my theme, do 2 posts a week, and attempt to write effectively, all at the same time, was overwhelming. I also got lost with some of the social networking assignments. Part of it for me is that I’m not even sure I want to be doing that much social networking. I found some people I didn’t know at blogcatalog leaving messages in my shoutbox.
I enjoyed the class very much, but I definitely think that breaking it up into 2 parts would make it easier on both the students…..and the instructor.
It was an excellent class, Bean. It did have almost an overload of information in it, which I don’t necessarily think is a negative. I know I’ll be digging in the lessons further and exploring many of the helpful links you provided these next couple months.
There is so much to blogging, that each lesson could have been an entire class on it’s own! The two big things that people, including myself, seemed to get hung up on were choosing/customizing a theme and the social networking. The thing is, however, that everyone coming into this class was at a different level in their blogging skills and knowledge. Spreading things out & slowing things down a little in the lessons would help those that are new to blogging, but would then frustrate those who have some experience under their belt. One possible solution would be to have a beginners class for those who are starting at square one, and have a second class for those who already have blogs, and want to learn more about effective writing, sources of blogging income, social networking, etc.
All in all, it was a great class and I’m grateful for all the time and energy you put into the lessons and especially for the insightful feedback and critique you gave me.
Viki Nygaard
This was a wonderful class – jam-packed with information. Although I’ve not had the time I would have liked to devote to the class, reading classmate’s blogs, blogging, and posting, I feel I have learned a lot and have enough information to continue exploring the previously ‘little known’ world of blogging.
Regarding your questions:
1) Content amount was just right – even though I was perpetually behind. I agree with Deb, there is never too much content. I think the weekly lessons would have been easier to navigate if they were broken down into chapter chunks (an index of hyperlinks would be helpful). I think another way to tackle the vast amount of content is to include assignments at the end of each chapter, instead of just at the end of the weekly lesson. For those who only have little bits of time here and there, it might be easier to keep up if we knew what we needed to focus on for each chapter.
2) I think the class might be easier to digest if it was broken down into two courses – maybe even three. An idea is that the first course could focus on installation, configuration, customization (themes, plugins, changing headers, side bars, etc.) and the in’s and out’s of posting. Maybe the second course could focus on the social networking, promotion, fame and fortune aspect of blogging. Another idea is that a third course could focus on critiquing one’s established blog and brainstorming, but maybe that’s what Magnolia is about (haven’t gotten to lesson 6 yet).
3) The order of topics made sense, though I think that effective writing would have been a beneficial topic to cover earlier in the course.
4) Less detail – none.
5) I would have like to see pingbacks, trackbacks, categories, and tags covered in greater detail, perhaps with additional real world examples (screenshots) and additional explanations as to why/how these aspects of blogging are important, what they are used for, etc.
6) I think introducing social networking in week 5 allowed for many to at least try it. However, as many others have suggested, a whole course on social networking would be beneficial. If you do decide to break the blogging course into two classes, I still think it would be worthwhile to introduce it in the first course since it takes so much time to develop.
There were so many valuable resources, which was wonderful, but after a while I found it difficult to locate them (e.g., was this specific link or information located in lesson 2, 3, 5? etc.) I would love to see a “Resources” PDF made available at the end of the course to help organize all of the fantastic information to which we were introduced.
If you decided to keep blogging as one course, I like it organized as you had it, with the exception of introducing writing earlier and providing a “resource” guide of sorts.
Thanks so much for a great course, Bean! I have never been disappointed in courses offered by LVS, and this is no exception. It’s obvious that you spent a great deal of time and effort developing this course. I really enjoyed learning about blogging.
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