Archives For Writing

Getting Back to Regular Writing
In the past 6 months, my family and I have experienced 3 major traumatic events that have consumed our lives. During this time, I have not been able to do much more than keep up with my workload and the new challenges that I am dealing with. While I have managed to keep up with my instruction and other responsibilities I have in running the Applied Digital Learning Masters, unfortunately, my writing, publication, content creation, and other development tasks have been severely limited. Even though the impacts of these challenges are still present I have learned to live with the changes and am moving forward. I have also gotten to the point where I am able to share the lessons I have learned and over the past few weeks have started writing again. As I move forward I hope that the new stories I am about to share will help others. The following are some of the key points that I will be focusing on as I move forward.

It’s About the Story/Purpose
In the post Sharing Stuff That Sticks and Want to Change the World: Tell a Good Story I make the argument that good stories or a good narrative can have a huge impact. Unfortunately, academics, teachers, and students often forget this simple fact and get caught up in the mechanics of writing, and lose sight of the purpose of the writing.

I am not alone in my thinking about writing. In Why Academics Stink at WritingSteven Pinker’s article Why Academics Stink at Writing is a must-read – https://learning.hccs.edu/faculty/duncan.hasell/engl1302/academic-writing/Why%20Academics%20Writing%20Stinks%20-%20The%20Chronicle%20of%20Higher%20Education.pdf

Eliminate Passive Voice and Us Active Voice
Consider how difficult the following statement is to understand:

It has been observed in a frequency all too significant that students upon submission of their written assignments have been inclined to have chosen a manner of composition that is too often far from one that is direct enough to be understood as conveying meaning in a fashion that is most expedient.

You will find the interpretation of this statement as well as an assortment of resources and links on how to avoid using passive voice in the post How to Use Zombies to Kill Passive Voice.

Primary Sources
In the post To Get the Real Story You Need to Go to Primary Sources I point to the fact that YOU have the responsibility to verify what you read by reading critically and thinking analytically while looking at the evidence. I have also argued that the notion of trusted sources is something that we cannot rely on anymore, at least not completely. I will go as far as to suggest that there are some sources that I may be more inclined to initially trust but I would still verify.

Whom can you trust? Trust yourself. You need to do your due diligence and look at all the facts and make an informed decision. There is no quick fix. The most efficient way is to go back to the primary sources and see what is really being claimed. Please keep this in mind as you do your research for your writing.

Literature Review – What Does the Data Say Tips
Even if you have to write for a very specific academic purpose like a literature review remember that purpose or story behind what you are looking to the literature for support. Make sure you take some time to review the Literature Review tips on the ADL/EDLD 5305 Tips & Perspectives page

Going Deeper
Please remember that the following sections of my website/ePortfolio will have a wealth of information that will help you Change the World One Learner at a Time by adopting a Learner’s Mindset and sharing that journey.

In this Learner’s Mindset Discussion. Dr. Thibodeaux and I discuss the 5 biggest ePortfolio mistakes I have made over the years. Another way to look at these mistakes is from the context of what are the 5 things I wish I did sooner? If I were to start from scratch with what I know now what would I do?

  1. Switched to WordPress Sooner
  2. Stop playing the name game (i.e. website, blog, digital portfolio, ePortfolio, etc.)
  3. Create a domain of my own
  4. Post sooner and smaller
  5. Digital dump drawer

Bonus Mistake – 5b. or 6. Effective navigation structure

The following is a short summary of the highlights from the discussion:

1. Switched to WordPress Sooner
I started teaching fully online in 1995 and I started my first ePortfolio or started keeping a weblog what we refer to as a Blog at the same time. Unfortunately, I don’t have a fully functional record going back to 1995 because I kept on chasing the next best platform. I had learned HTML (hypertext markup language) and quickly realized that this wasn’t an efficient way to post quickly and often so I started using an early content management system what are commonly called CMS back in the late 90s. Unfortunately, many of these systems like XOOPS, Hyperwave, and Mambo no longer exist and many of the CMSs like Joomla and Drupal that are still around today are not the best tool for an ePortfolio. I have lost over a decade of my posts because of this. I have many archived versions of my earlier sites exported to HTML but these archives are just too difficult to use. In early 2000 I also started posting for the institutions that I was working for and when I left those institutions all may work remained and in most cases is no longer available. From 2006-2009 I posted almost daily and while I do have an archive it isn’t easily accessible online. In 2009 I finally stopped shopping around and realized that WordPress was going to be around for the long haul can I committed to this platform.

2. Stop playing the name game
My ePortfolio is the same as my blog or as my website, or my net presence. Regardless of what you call it…this is my space on the internet that I fully control where I can share my voice, insights, ideas, and resources with others… or not. This issue also contributed to my search for the ideal platform. I know I wasn’t just blogging so I actually stayed away the early WP because it really just focused on 90% of what I wanted to do. It wasn’t long before WP matured to the point it did everything the early CMS did and much more. But I still waited for too many years to move to it and also to create my own domain.

3. Create a domain of my own.
I own many many domains which I have parked and don’t use and in 2009 I finally registered my own name and have been using this as my only website, ePortfolio, blog, or whatever you want to call it. I wasted so much time, money, and resources moving from platform to platform or trying to copy the work when I was working with a number of different educational institutions. If you are using your school or institution’s platform for your website, blog, ePortfolio, etc. you never really own it and it will stay with the institution when you leave. Once again I have lost so much of my work over the years because I made this mistake.

4. Post sooner and smaller.
Seth Godin posts almost daily and sometimes it is just a matter of 2-3 sentences. Some of these best or most memorable and useful posts have been 2-3 sentences. It has taken me WAY too long to realize that my posts don’t have to have every detail or that they need to be perfect. It is much better to get your ideas out and in the process, you start to make those meaningful connections as you reflect on your experiences. You can always go back and edit what you have written or add a Part B or follow-up post.

5. Digital dump drawer
If you want your ideas to be useful to others you just can dump all your digital content into your site and treat it like people treat a dump drawer–you know that drawer or shelf or cabinet that you just dump things into and that you can never find again. Rather than just dump assignments, essays, or other digital content into your digital container you need to create a context for this information and connect it to that context. This is an integral part of making that meaningful connection.

Bonus
5b. or 6. Effective navigation structure
Just because you know what rabbit trail to take to your information doesn’t mean others will. Building an effective navigation structure, using tags and categories, and having a functional search engine will help others find your information…so will sending your audience an accurate URL. Having a fully functional search engine will also help you and your users to find things that haven’t been titled or categorized well. When you have several hundred or thousand posts/pages on your site a search engine is a necessity not only for your user but for yourself.

Links to some of the people, sites, or tools I mentioned in LMD and this post

Levi Bikes
http://levibikes.com/

Seth Godin’s Blog
https://seths.blog

WP – CMS Market Share
https://w3techs.com/technologies/overview/content_management/all

WordPress history
https://codex.wordpress.org/History

Mambo history
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mambo_(software)

Joomla History
https://cms2cms.com/blog/hyper-speed-joomla-history/

Evolution of the CMS
https://cms2cms.com/blog/evolution-cms-platform-caveman-homo-sapiens/

Drupal History
https://www.drupal.org/about/history

History of blogging
https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/history-of-blogging

History of EduBlog
http://historyofeducationsociety.blogspot.com/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edublog

It has been observed in a frequency all too significant that students upon submission of their written assignments have been inclined to have chosen a manner of composition that is too often far from one that is direct enough to be understood as conveying meaning in a fashion that is most expedient.

HUH??? I would be shocked if this wasn’t your initial response to this sentence. Chances are you had to read the sentence several times to discern:

Student’s writing is difficult to understand when they use passive voice.

Obviously the first sentence is a ridiculous exaggeration I created to make a point about passive voice and vague writing. If you have to stop and re-read sentences or paragraphs multiple times to get to their real meaning you are not alone. Too many writers use obtuse or vague writing and I provid recommendations for avoiding this type of writing in the post Our work doesn’t have to be obtuse to be important. The focus of this post is editing our writing from the passive to active voice.

Identifying Passive Voice

Rather then try to explain that passive voices occurs when a noun being acted upon is made the subject of the sentence I will use the following example:

Passive voice
The technology was Implemented

The technology is receiving the action but because it is the subject of the sentence it makes the sentence passive.

Active voice
Teachers implemented the technology.

Teachers are performing the action of implementing the technology which makes the sentence active.

There is an easier way to test to see if your sentence is passive or active. Just use Rebecca Johnson’s “by Zombies” test. If you can add “by Zombies” after the verb and it makes sense (grammatically), you probably have passive voice.

“by Zombies: Test
Consider our two earlier examples:

The technology was Implemented “by Zombies”. – makes sense so it is passive

Teachers implemented the technology “by Zombies”. – doesn’t make sense so it is active.

Warning – the Zombie test works for many examples but it doesn’t work for all. For more examples of sentences written in passive and active voice refer to:

Examples of Active and Passive Voice
http://examples.yourdictionary.com/examples-of-active-and-passive-voice.html

For a more sophisticated assortment of examples of fixes for passive voice refer to:

7 Examples of Passive Voice (And How To Fix Them)
http://www.dailywritingtips.com/7-examples-of-passive-voice/