It's all about being a good digital citizen

As I've mentioned in previous posts, I'm working on a large project right now. A project that is awesome, but a time suck. Every aspect of it has me jumping online, looking for resources, ideas, tools, etc., and those just lead me down new rabbit holes that get me excited for all the new things I discover. Today, I'm investigating the topic of digital accountability. It's a BIG one. So important. So simple, yet so complex.

In my meandering through the interwebs, a Google search led me to a Pinterest board, which led me to a blog post that contained an infographic I liked. Of course, that led me to clicking on the link to the original source of the infographic, which just led me to another blog I want to follow. Phew. So much.

Sharing this infographic because I think it really simplifies all of the ways we can be responsible digital citizens. Thanks to Mia on An Ethical Island for sharing it... and all of her work. She has all of her infographics in a shared Dropbox account and licensed under Creative Commons under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. (share for any non-commercial use - no editing). How generous! I'll be adding her blog to my reading list...

URL: http://anethicalisland.wordpress.com/2013/04/22/digital-citizenship/

Blogging is SCARY

I had no idea what goes into maintaining a blog. Granted, right now my goal is simply to provide information, resources, etc. to my colleagues (not get famous or make money) and a blog seemed an easier venue than a newsletter, but wow. As I explore Blogger and read, well, blogs ABOUT blogging, I get intimidated. So many things to consider.

On top of that, I'm also trying to delve further into social media as a way of getting professional development... which puts one more thing on my daily to-do list, but can also be helpful in this blogging thing. Just checked Twitter for the first time in a week (goodbye, spring break) and saw this linked by another local ed tech colleague (thanks @sueandrewstech):

Like this infographic? Get content marketing advice that works from Copyblogger.

Definitely a resource I will revisit and encourage my coworkers to visit when they venture into blogging some day. Here is the blog post in which the infographic was originally published; it's full of links to help with the 11 ingredients.

Scrolling through my Twitter feed a little more, I stumbled on a post from one of my favorite ed tech bloggers, Richard Byrne (@rmbyrne). I've been following his Free Technology for Teachers blog for a few years now (I was still teaching English when I discovered it) and have used and shared many of his posts. This caught my eye:

The Schedule of a Full-time Blogger and Consultant http://t.co/EbgLEUOnvV
— Richard Byrne (@rmbyrne) March 24, 2014

I know that people make a living by blogging, but the idea is actually exhausting to me.  So I thought this blog post could give me a little perspective. And yes, it did. But what I really learned by clicking Richard's link and reading the post was that he maintains TWO blogs. WHAT?! A blog about ed tech and a blog about... BLOGGING. He really might be my new guru.  

UPDATE (3/27/14) - I had initially figured out how to embed the infographic into this blog post thanks to the instructions on its source.  Now I'm excited because I just figured out that I could embed a Tweet into a blog post.  No more opening Snipping Tool, applying Snipping Tool, saving picture, inserting picture, etc.  Just a little HTML code to plug in!