End of the year again, and the perennial question return – is blogging dead?
According to Google Trends, some topics remain popular, however finding educational blog content becomes ever more difficult though the use of Google’s search *cough engine. The popular view is that ‘blogging’ reached a peak around 2006-2008. Bloggers began to use a range of tools (email subscriptions, ebooks) and of course the advice to move to the ‘on trend’ platform such as Tumblr or Periscope.
The personal blog has long since been packaged and re-packaged as a tool which creates personal income and tangential success as a result. The message is perhaps the key to relevance, and as I end 2016, my tenth year of tapping out a blog – there are some messages that no longer interest people – according to Google Trends etc.,
Education has been well and truly commodified. Bloggers who curate, review and amplify software and brand messages dominate the online discourse. Counter-voices are simply washed away in the rankings – offering no value to advertisers. The personal blog (this) is dead, aside from it’s value to me (the tapper).
Some decisions need to be made here …
- What topics am I actually interested in … (useful)
- What topics are just rants about sloganeering and the slide of “edTech”.
When I look back this year, I’ve spent hardly any time on item (1) and been increasingly irritated by (2). I am sure I’ll be more irritated next year … so the answer is to let it go.
When producers want to know what the public wants, they graph it as curves. When they want to tell the public what to get, they say it in curves. – Marshall McLuhan
The curve of EdTech is narrow: a set of binary comparisons set against a backdrop of teacher hopes and fears. Brands dominate the curve, therefore what we understand is derived from products far more than the scholarship of teaching.
2017 is also a year in which I want to make deeper inroads into my thesis – which is about media – the interactions of parents and children around games and other screen based media, so I’m going to take my own advice and focus on that.
Thanks for reading in 2016. Much appreciated!
Playable 
Damn – although I have rarely appeared in the comments section, I have always read your musings, and agree with most of them, so I will miss this blog if indeed you hold to your decision. Perhaps it may still provide a forum for you to express frustration, exasperation, or your take on the next big thing!
Sad to hear it but understandable. One of the 2-3 edublogs I actually happily spend my limited time on. Thanks for the insights and honesty. Kind regards, Rob
I read your posts. Please continue blogging, if you can.
Challenge this:
“The curve of EdTech is narrow: a set of binary comparisons set against a backdrop of teacher hopes and fears. Brands dominate the curve, therefore what we understand is derived from products far more than the scholarship of teaching.”
I find it is true within a certain domain, but ed tech is far wider than that. Look for things like ‘reclaim learning’, ‘domain of ones own’, ‘indieweb’, and more. Don’t let yourself be dragged into the U.S. education policy cesspool. Look beyond schools and institutions to see how people are using the internet to teach themselves.
Thanks Stephen, I’m much more interested in the cutures being created and especially parent’s efforts to mediate, which often seems at odds with their own behaviours. Still blogging!
I read your blog because you immerse yourself in the content. When you comment on something I am confident that you have actually used the ed-tech/software/game or built it. Sharing that tacit knowledge is valuable. It is part of the reason why I came to work with you (briefly) six year ago.
On the other hand, getting your PhD finished has to be a priority. Even though this is now “old”, Joe Wolfe’s “How to Write a PhD Thesis” is still relevant… http://newt.phys.unsw.edu.au/~jw/thesis.html
Ditto Mr Parker. Time flys by. I need to pull my finger out.