Thing 5

Thing 5 turned out to be more challenging than I believed it would be. I had a lot of trouble with adding the bookmarklet!! Although I use Internet Explorer, there was no "Links" folder to select in "My Favorites" and I spent a couple of hours trying to figure out what I was doing wrong before I gave up and decided to ask Kaly. She was able to tell me how to handle it, and mentioned that she had written about that same problem in her blog. Had I taken a few minutes to look at her blog, I could have answered the question and moved on instead of getting frustrated! Lesson learned!

A question came up when I was adding a blog by copying and pasting. When I pasted the URL and selected "subscribe", a list of choices came up. These all appeared to be the same website, but with slightly different URL's. Some selections had different dates, both current and from past years. How do you know which one to select? I chose the first one and hope that will work out.

I can see where blogs can be a big help professionally because they can keep you on top of the latest on just about any subject you can think of. I can keep current on things at any and every level I choose: a certain subject, the Montessori world, the latest at CMA, at Choice Schools, at Wayne RESA, the State of Michigan, the United States and the World! I can also use blogging to communicate with parents and students. Although I do wonder how effective a parent blog will be, as I typically have several families who rarely check their email, or have no email address because they don't own or have access to a computer. In additin, like e-mailing, it involves parents taking the time to look at the item. An e-mail is more "in your face", and I wonder how many would choose to check or subscribe to my blog. If they don't choose to go there, it doesn't have the desired outcome.

On a personal level, I like the idea of using genealogy blogs to hobnob with my fellow family researchers. My hope is to look for blogs that include particular geographical areas I am researching or an ethnic group in my lineage. After belonging to a Genealogical Society for the past 20 years, I've learned how much help we family historians can be to one another. I can only imagine the ideas, guidance and assistance I might get from a blog of this type! My experience personally gives me every reason to believe this can also happen on a professional level.

That leaves only one problem...how am I going to incorporate reading all of these blogs into my already busy schedule?! :)