It’s been a year since I tentatively dipped my toes into the then cold waters of blogging to create a learning journal for myself, publishing my first post on 19 June 2017 at 2:50pm local time. The intention was for it to be a personal place to reflect on my learning, teaching and research journey which one day might culminate in a PhD. It was cheeky of me to name the blog ‘pathwaytophd’ but the WordPress name was a more conservative one containing ‘eternal student’ since that’s what I consider myself to be in a lifelong learning journey that continues to have its ups and downs.
During this first year I’ve published 28 posts, on average two per month except for a dry spell in March and April when study and teaching commitments took over. Advice to bloggers mentions having a pipeline of topics and a regular schedule to publish so that readers will have a clear expectation of when the next post might be, if not the topic. I tend to agree with having a pipeline and have recently gotten into the habit of freewriting so when a topic pops into my head I’ll try to spend 5 or 10 minutes freewriting in a notebook to come back to later. Freewriting is a technique that’s new to me and while I had heard the term I hadn’t practiced it until participating in a recent summer school in academic writing for my programme at the University of Edinburgh. More on the summer school to follow soon in a separate post. Going forward my plan is to continue to try and publish 2 blog posts per month but not lose any sleep if I don’t rigidly stick to this schedule.
I smile to myself when I inadvertently published a link to my first post on Twitter. While my site was initially set to private where only I and anyone I approved to see it could do so, as my confidence in my writing grew I changed the setting to hidden so it could easily be shared with readers (mostly student peers but also with individuals I felt might be interested in a particular post I had written). This setting remains and I don’t foresee changing to public where the site can be indexed by search engines. ‘Never say never’, as the saying goes, since it was through a Google search that led me to an informative blog by Debbie Baff who is a student on the structured PhD programme in E-Research and Technology Enhanced Learning that I myself will be joining in January 2019. Is it therefore selfish of me to keep my blog hidden when I’m finding inspiration from other students blogs? There have been many but I should specifically mention those involved in the #ProfDockers movement, Pat Culhane, Lesley Martin and Eileen O’Neil whose writings and engagement have been so helpful to me.
Over the year my confidence in this genre of writing has developed. I really enjoyed the blogging aspect of both courses completed at Edinburgh (Introduction to Digital Environments for Learning and Digital Education in Global Context) and feel my marks for both reflected this. Formal academic writing on the other hand needs more work and is one of the reasons I signed up for the optional summer school led by the ever-motivating Christine Sinclair. I am committed to writing as much or more than I plan to read this summer and I’m confident my academic writing skills will improve.
Passing 600 words now for this post so in keeping with my goals of a blog post rather than a blessay I’ll close by saying it’s been a great first year of blogging. I have learned so much from so many people of the course of the year, tutors, peers and even my own students’ writing that I feel my skills across many levels have improved. For the year ahead, the goal must be to keep on learning.
Until next time.
Sandra
Sandra Flynn 
Well done Sandra on another powerful post, and too for a year of regular blogging. Really enjoy your stuff. I admire your honesty about lacking & gaining confidence in putting your writing on a public platform. I can empathise; it can take years to work up the courage to put your work (i.e. yourself) out there. Having started the #ProfDockers movement since Jan., I have to say that is is worth it – not in the sense of personal recognition, but that it has led to connecting with other Doctoral students, like yourself Sandra, and challenges the isolation, etc. that can be experienced as part of this profound pursuit. Theorode Roosevelt once said that “nobody cares how much you know, until they know how much you care”. So your effort to write these articles and to reach out to others Sandra, for me, shows how much you care, not only about own learning & development, but more so that of others. Keep up the good work and more power to you, as you begin the life-changing experience of pursuing a PhD. You’ll be great…
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Really liked your review of the blogging experience Sandra. I agree free writing feels strange to start with, then becomes liberating and brings a real sense of achievement. Target of 2 posts per month is ambitious so good luck – and happy writing over the summer!
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