As I approach the end of my time in the MALAT program at Royal Roads University, I’ve begun to think about the next step. Over the past couple of years, much to my surprise, I’ve enjoyed blogging from an academic perspective. As a result, I plan to continue to do it following my completion of the program. I look forward to developing a professional digital presence following my time at Royal Roads as it can benefit my continued learning and career, but I need to be cautious of how it will be interpreted by the community who consumes it.
Why Should I Continue to Contribute?
My experience writing blog posts during my time with Royal Roads has given me confidence to contribute to the academic community. As Watters (2015) described, providing students with their own digital space provides them with an opportunity to have more control over how they present themselves to the world. Now, moving forward, I look to engage with the larger community and build my reputation as a source for valuable insight on the topic of educational technology. During my professional career, I’ve developed what Boyd (2010) labeled a networked public, described in their own words as “the imagined collective that emerges as a result of the intersection of people, technology, and practice” (p. 1). However, up to this point, I’ve done little to contribute to that network outside of the occasional pleasantries.
Now, with my newfound confidence, I plan to be more active in the discourse amongst like-minded people to continue my own learning and develop a more impactful digital presence. I hope to share my own thoughts and in return, learn from those people in the community who also contribute. To describe this reciprocity of contributions, Jenkins used an analogy of a group coming together to create a quilt (Edutopia, 2013). In this group, there is no leader or expert, but everyone comes together to share their knowledge in what he described as “a social mode of production” (1:47). I’ve always considered myself a life-long learner and look forward to continuing in that regard.
In addition to my continued learning, I also look to build my reputation with a hope of having my participation lead to a positive impact on my professional career. To do this I will need to post relatively frequently and draw attention to my contributions. Anderson and Dron (2014) argued that those people who contribute the most “see their contributions giving them authority and prestige within that community and across their networks” (p. 19). However, to benefit from any potential authority and prestige, I’ll need to encourage my network to consume my content.
How Will I Spread the Word?
The good news is, that drawing attention to things is a strength of mine. I’ve been working in the media and marketing industry for the majority of my professional career and know a thing or two about promoting content in a digital environment. Without going into too much detail here, lest this post become far too long, my plan will involve developing a digital identity based in consistency. Consistency in rhetoric, consistency in frequency of posts, and consistency of subject. This consistency is required to develop loyalty in an audience and develop an expectation of content delivery. I plan to support this content delivery with promotional material driving traffic to my blog on platforms such as LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, and Tik Tok. This is the part of the process that concerns me the least, as I can rely on my strengths for success. I will track the analytics on all of the platforms in addition to WordPress and make adjustments to my plan based on that feedback.
I’m not too concerned at the moment regarding determining a specific threshold that would indicated success. Right now, my main objective is to contribute to the greater learning community and benefit my own learning. Perhaps, in the future, I may develop more quantitative goals, but that is not currently a priority for me.
Long Term Impact
What does concern me, however, are the possible implications of my content creation in the long term. The content that I post online will likely outlive me and I should keep its long term impact in mind and how that might reflect on me and my family. White and Le Cornu (2011) brought attention to the fact that the online artifacts developed by content creators continue to impact their audiences long after the creators move on. As described by Boyd (2010), the persistence of online content can outlive the context in which it was written. Additionally, as I will likely have only tenuous connections with the majority of people who read my content online, I need to be wary of possible misinterpretations due to a difference in perspective and context. This combination of temporal and perspective context shift can lead to misinterpretations of the content I’ve written. While there’s little I can do about most of these possible misinterpretations, I suspect I’ll be able to prevent some percentage if I’m cognitive of the possibility of its occurrence.
Regardless of any long term negative implications, I think it’s most likely that the good will outweigh the bad. And besides, I’ll enjoy it.
References
Anderson, T., & Dron, J. (2014). Teaching Crowds: Learning and Social Media. In Teaching Crowds: Learning and Social Media. Athabasca University Press. https://doi.org/10.15215/aupress/9781927356807.01
Boyd, D. (2010). Social network sites as networked publics: Affordances, dynamics, and implications. In Z. Papacharissi (Ed.), A Networked Self: Identity, Community, and Culture on Social Network Sites (pp. 39–58). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203876527-8
Edutopia. (2013). Henry Jenkins on participatory culture (big thinkers series) [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1gPm-c1wRsQ
Watters, A. (2015). The web we need to give students. Bright Magazine. https://brightthemag.com/the-web-we-need-to-give-students-311d97713713#.a2rmav7fp
White, D. S., & Le Cornu, A. (2011). Visitors and residents: A new typology for online engagement. First Monday, 16(9). https://firstmonday.org/article/view/3171/3049
I think I agree with the comment of consistency. I follow a few comics and youtube channels with regular (once, twice or thrice a week) postings and their consistency keeps me coming back. I always amazes me though that they are able to produce original content every week without fail. I think for me, I’d run out of ideas and then be perpetually behind! :O
Thanks for reading my post, Patrick. The importance of consistency when developing an audience can’t be overstated… and you make a good point about coming up with new content. I’ve dealt with countless people who have approached me and my team about developing new content, whether that be a radio show, a television series, a podcast, or whatever. In the vast majority of cases, these people will have determined a topic for the first one or two episodes and then want to jump right in. In almost all situations, they don’t realize how difficult it is to be consistent with content delivery over a long period of time. It can be exhausting and most people aren’t prepared for it.
What’s important is to be realistic about what you can accomplish. The schedule you develop when choosing to create content almost doesn’t matter. What matters is that once it’s decided, that you stick to it. Whether you choose to post once a week, bi-weekly, once a month, or whatever… you will quickly train your audience on what to expect, and you can’t let them down.
Hi Christopher,
Great post. Your situation is very much similar to mine, right down to how writing carries the potential to benefit your professional career in education; I agree with this idea wholeheartedly.
On that note, have you determined your content focus yet? I also believe in the power of niching down social media content to build a following, so I’m super curious as to what aspect of EdTech you want to focus on.
Cheers,
Jonathan
Thanks so much for your comments, Jonathan. I agree, we’re in very similar boats.
You’ve dropped a very good question in my lap. Honestly, no, I haven’t come to a solid conclusion on that just yet… but I do think it’s important. Ideally, in order to keep me personally interested, I would be writing content that aligns with my own curiosity at any given time. But, where that can be problematic… is that I’m interested in so many things. If I were to allow the content to be directed by my whim, it would be inconsistent. I really should, as you suggest, aim to narrow my focus. It’s a critical decision that shouldn’t be made lightly, as I mentioned in my response to Patrick, I will need to be consistent over a long period and I need to stay on topic.
You’ve given me a lot to think about.