Stretching my reading (and blogging?) life in 2013

 “No one who reads should apologize for their preferences and reading experiences, but we can aspire to stretch ourselves or fill any perceived deficits in our reading lives.” (Donalyn Miller)


 I recently came across this sentence in a blog post by Donalyn Miller aka the Book Whisperer. While I follow the ideas and experiences she shares throughout the year, I especially look forward to her posts towards the end of a year. I know that she will give me some great ideas when thinking about setting goals for my reading life. The end of 2012 was no exception to this and so I decided to aim at stretching my reading experience during 2013, by aiming to include more titles from genres I usually (with much success) ignore; science fiction for example. I am really exited about this idea because I know that I will thereby discover some great new stories.

Once I had decided to work on stretching my reading life, I thought why not apply the stretching idea also to some other areas such as the sharing of my reading and learning through various social media and my blog. It's not that I haven't tried it before - and failed even though constantly encouraged by friends (thanks for not giving up on me, Edna) - but somehow I never got very far with my blogging. Let's see how it goes this year :)
If you are just like me, trying to get into blogging, here a wonderful post with excellent tips:


10 Tips for (Reticent) Bloggers...

How do you keep up?

I love using the Internet to connect with a wider PLN and share my learning. I am a big fan of blogs, wikis, Diigo, only2clicks and other Web 2.0 tools. Whenever I discover something new, I can spend hours exploring, experimenting and creating. But it seems I am never able to keep up with it, especially posting on my blog and reading other blogs regularly. While I constantly write blog posts and comments in my head, I usually don’t get to publish them. Lately, I have even fallen behind updating my Shelfari. So often it’s only during the holidays that I get to catch up a bit. I admire others who constantly post, comment, create and share: John Schu, Shannon Miller, Edna Sackson, and Dianne McKenzie, just to mention a few (and forgetting so many other great educators I should mention… my apologies).

Fortunately, there is Twitter, which allows me to stay connected and feel in touch with what is going on, no matter how busy I am. I catch up on tweets through my phone whenever I have a few minutes. With messages never longer than 140 characters that’s not a big deal. When I find something of interest, a resource or tool I want to explore further, I email it to myself (I don’t like reading longer articles on my phone, my eyes aren’t that great anymore…). On my computer I can easily bookmark it and share it with others who might not be on Twitter yet. I am also never behind in sharing on Twitter what I am reading or discovering. Writing 140 characters take just a moment - that is what makes Twitter so great.

Nevertheless, I hope to do a better job in blogging next year and would love to hear your advice. What helps you in posting regularly? Any tips and tricks you can share are appreciated.