I have been approached by a professional writer Tom Jager who occasionally writes for Huffington Post. We discussed several interesting ideas for an article. In the process, I understood that he learned A LOT from being a writer. Below is his story written by him. Also you may want to read this story of how a photographer gets educated by his work.
Recently, blogging has received a lot of attention and for a good reason. Blogging is not only for business, but it is a good tool for learning. I started my first blog a little over ten years ago. Since then, I have been blogging for about three to four times a week. It has been a wonderful journey with a lot of challenges but at the same time, it was a learning experience and a source of personal growth.
In this article, I will tell talk about blogging as a way for fast learning. I will continue by talking about how to be an active part participant on the internet. And I will finish with telling you what you need to start blogging right away.
How blogging helps in fast learning
When I started blogging, I really wondered if this is what was right but what that kept me going was the immense passion I had in writing. As a Master student, I began to realize that the daily writing had some impact on my life. I was confident about my research, and I developing a certain brand of myself that increased my confidence even in my school work. Also, I made a network of colleagues who were already blogging. The best part was getting to read other people’s blogs, share ideas, and research findings. The interesting part was that most of the bloggers were my fellow Master’s students and it was an added advantage for me since we supported each other a lot while working on completing our studies.
I can say that this blog network opened up a lot for me and I was able to conduct a lot of research. I got a lot of insights by reading content from other prolific bloggers such as Rebecca Blood who was one of the most professional bloggers on her blog Rebecca’s Pocket during that time. She wrote about her journey in blogging and how it helped her learn a lot and understand her interests.
In my blog, it became clear that writing for readers was a little different from scribbling notes on a notebook. I had to be careful in my writing since someone was going to read what I write. This means that you write and keep in mind that there is a possibility that others may agree or disagree with what you have written.
How to be an active blogger in a network of other learners
How can people use blogging as a way to learn new things?
In my journey as a blogger, I have come across so many people who ask if blogging is worth the time. Most of them are students who have a lot of ideas but they don’t know how to bring them out to the world. In my years of blogging, I had the idea that people would embrace blogging as happily as I did when I started. But that didn’t happen. In fact, I would say that most hate blogging at first, and most people tend to see as a time-consuming endeavor that takes long to grow. The truth is, it isn’t as obvious as most of us think and for a good reason.
Most people especially students are shy of writing especially if it involves displaying it on the internet. Even when they get the courage to do so, they don’t think the world will be interested in what they write. Part of this is due to the way we bring them up and teach in our education systems. Students are taught to seek help from professional writing services to write essays for them and they are only seen by the teacher and may be the examiner. We don’t make them realize that their writing can be useful outside the classroom. I began to introduce blogging to students and although it took some time, it turned out well. I began with small exercises after every lesson, where the student would write a blog post based on the points of the lesson of discussion covered on that day. I also allowed them to google any difficult term and most of all, interact with each other when writing. I can say this worked out pretty well and most began to learn a lot.
How to get started with your blog right away
There is no shortcut in starting a blog, the secret is just doing it. Unlike before, it is now easy to get started with a blog. If you go to the internet, there are so many tips on how to get started with a blog. My favorite is Blogger.com. Here, you will be guided step by step through the process. Once you set your blog, create quality content. Look for topics that you are interested in and write about them. Read other blogs, read, comment and leave in the URL for your blog so that readers can find you. Also, write guest posts on other blogs and leave a link for people to follow back. Read a lot about other successful bloggers, ask questions and interact with the readers. Within no time, you will have a fun base of a lot of readers that are inspired by your writing. Don’t wait anymore, start now!
Tom Jager is professional blogger. He works at Awriter. He has degree in Law and English literature. Tom has written numerous articles/online journals. You can reach him at G+ or Facebook.
I would like to appreciate all your efforts, I have used many other services several times and I am very happy with it too. Finally once more thank you for this breathtaking article and I like this. I hope this will be very helpful to the students to complete their educational works related with the topics.
Thank you.
I have never thought! Thank you for sharing! I have a blog but I rarely write. Gonna write more blog posts.
You should write at least once a week, and never give up 🙂