Dec 16
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Life on the cutting edge.

RasierklingeImage via WikipediaIt’s not unusual when somebody shares a tip with me and then appends it by saying, “But I’m sure you already knew about that already.” I always find that funny because the only reason that I am familiar with so many sites and applications, is because people have learned about them and taken the time to share them! Rarely would I ever be so bold as to say that I was the ‘first’ person to discover something. It’s like we’re playing a giant game telephone, but in a multi-linear fashion. If I have any secret, it’s that I do my best to stay connected with a rather large group of people that are much more cutting edge than many of them believe themselves to be.

And that’s the other piece that I find absolutely fascinating. It often seems that most people that come up to me and chat after a presentation start up the conversation by saying, “I’m so far behind everyone, but I’m trying to catch up.” I couldn’t disagree more. In my experience, most educators are still FAR ahead of the curve.

Here’s what I mean. Jump onto a public bus or train. How many people on there do you think have ever created a blog? Listening to a podcast? Have created a network on Twitter? Know how to use Google Docs? Have collaborated on a wiki? And so on… What percentage of teachers do you think are adept in all those things? I dare say the overall percentage would be fairly low.

That’s why I truly do believe that the people who are sharing ideas with me on Twitter or staying behind to chat after presentations are more than likely WAY ahead of the majority of educators. They just don’t seem to believe it themselves. Why is it so hard to believe?

So out of curiosity, I’d love to hear where you think you fall on the bell curve. Ahead, behind, right on the top of the wave? And why?

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Dec 06
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The Networked Student… in plain English

This CommonCraft inspired video does an excellent job of explaining what a truly networked student looks like. And more importantly, what the teachers role is for them.

Consider it your weekend video break.


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Dec 05
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Celebrate the Day of the Ninja!

I always look forward to December 5th for two reasons. It happens to be my birthday, but more importantly, it’s also the Day of the Ninja! It’s the day when everybody, everywhere gets to… well… act like a ninja I guess! I’ve always been a big fan of ninjas. I watched a ton of ninja movies, including the Chris Farley classic Beverly Hills Ninja, and have read quite a few books featuring ninjas.

I began to wonder, what sits at the corner of EdTech Boulevard and Ninja Street? And with that, let’s take a look at some of the best Ninja resources for educators!

If we’re talking about Ninja education, I think we need to start with the Dean. Dean Dad is the Dean of a community college and came up with a list of what the Pre-Ninja program would look like at his school. He also expanded that to what the pre-reqs were, graduation requirements and that’s just the beginning. A fine place to start for any budding Technology Ninja.

NinjaImage via WikipediaSpeaking of Technology Ninjas, I’d be remiss if I didn’t pay homage to the original Technology Ninja, Tom Woodward. You may know him form his layman’s blog, Bionic Teaching, which just happens to be nominated at the EduBlog Awards. But once he dons his handy Ninja mask, he becomes the Technology Ninjawho is there to silently assassinate your technology problems! Unfortunately he hasn’t posted for quite a while there, but there’s still quite a lot to learn from.

I say that he’s the original, because he seems to have been supplanted by the EdTech Ninja. Who IS the EdTech Ninja? Nobody knows! Could it be Tom under a new guise? Or perhaps he’s a colleague of yours! He could be anybody because Ninjas are so stealthy and sneaky. What I do know is that there’s an incredible amount of information there for any educator, but especially those looking for Smartboard tips and tricks.

Finally, I wanted to share a video that I found. Student Ninjas at Metz Middle School won an honorable mention at the Shortie awards for this video. In it, “Ninjas must use their knowledge of inequalities to know what to do when hit by a negative!” Enjoy!

Hope your Day of the Ninja is full of sneaky fun!

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Dec 03
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Nominated

I was debating whether to share that I’ve been nominated for a couple of EduBlog Awards or not. I hate bragging and I certainly don’t want it to look like I’m begging for votes. But I finally decided to mention it because ya know what? I’m pretty darn proud of those nominations. I’ve spent a lot of time lately trying to convince teachers that don’t believe they have much of a reason to jump in and contribute to the conversation that they’re actually Rock Stars. I’ve preached that they need to take pride in their accomplishments major or minor and share their experiences with other people. So with that in mind, to heck with being modest!

This year I’ve been nominated for two EduBlog Awards. I’ve never been nominated for an ‘Eddie’ before, and To be completely honest, I’m pretty stoked. Win or lose, I consider it an honor and privileged to be listed with so many people that I consider to be some of the best EduBloggers out there. I’m proud to be able to call many of those people friends and colleagues, and would be absolutely thrilled for them if they won. Of course, I’d prefer to win myself, but that’s the competitive streak I have in me doesn’t even get turned off when I’m playing Candyland with kids!

Regardless, I greatly appreciate everybody that nominated me for the awards. I’ll be proud to add the badges into my sidebar regardless of what happens. If you’ve enjoyed learning with me here at Teach42, then swing by the EduBlog Awards and toss a vote my way in the two categories I’m nominated for: Best Individual Blog and Best EdTech Support Blog. If you look at those lists and find someone more deserving, then vote for them in good conscience. There are no unworthy nominees on that list. And then spend some time on the site exploring the various nominees in the different categories. I’ve often found it to be one of the best ways to discover new blogs for the ol’ aggregator!

Now get over there and vote!


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Dec 03
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ShoutEm is to Twitter as Ning is to Facebook

We’ve all known it was coming, it was just a matter of time. Well, it has finally arrived and I’m thrilled to say that it was worth the wait. ShoutEm is a create-your-own-Twitter platform that works just as easily as Ning does. All you need to do is sign up with the current invite code of “doneright“, and within minutes you’ll be creating your own version of Twitter, as customized as you want it to be. It took me about 10 minutes to create Tweach42, the microblogging community for Teach42 readers!

They have several basic skins to choose from, but if they don’t quite suit you, you can upload images and tweak the settings through their UI. Or if you want more advanced features, just create your own darn CSS, they fully support it. I can only imagine what people are going to come up with down the road. Features include the ability to allow or disable public profiles, anonymous shouts (tweets), control replies, pownce like file sharing features, and even the ability to keep your network private or approve registrations on an individual basis.

What does this mean? It means that we finally have the ability to create our own Twitters for niche purposes. Youth Voices doesn’t need to hack Wordpress anymore to simulate Twitter. Teachers can use it for any classroom project, with full privacy or publicity as needed. I plan to use it for backchannels and as an example for how microblogs work in a less crazy setting than Twitter itself. The possibilities are pretty endless.

Mind you, this isn’t a replacement for Edmodo, a site I’m still a fan of. Edmodo is what Twitter would have looked like if it had been designed by educators for classroom purposes. This is for people who like the Twitter format already and just want their own custom version of it.

If you want to play around with it, visit Tweach42 and send off a few shouts. And when you want to create your own, visit ShoutEm and use the invitation code “doneright“.

What kind of uses do you see Shoutem being used for??

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Dec 02
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Real world art

Children drawing_Cuba 079Image by hoyasmeg via FlickrOver coffee today, somebody shared with me a website where peopled posted a creative brief for a logo or design they were looking for and how much they were willing to pay. Then people competed to win the ‘prize’. The site is called CrowdSPRING and what’s amazing about it is that people aren’t competing to win a contract to create the logo/design, they’re actually going ahead and doing the work and hoping to be the one selected as the winner. For example, Scholarship Connect is going to be a search engine for college bound students and they need a logo. They’re offering up $250 to the best design submitted to them by December 4th. So far, they have 37 entries to choose from.

At first I was just way impressed at the idea of the site, and that so many professional and amateur graphic designers were participating. Then i started wondering whether any student graphic designers were jumping into the game. After all, why not? If they enjoyed doing design work and wanted to practice in some real world situations, why not try their hand at some logos for real potential clients? Their creations would be competing directly with people who do it for a living (or on the side) and it’s always possible that they could win one and make a little money to put towards college!

Seriously though, it really does make you think about creating authentic experiences for students. So many people are fond of blogging because students are publishing for a real world audience, not just the teacher. But what about taking it a step further? Back to the art example.

Laurel at the new-to-her easelImage by oddharmonic via FlickrAs I mentioned, on CrowdSpring.com, students could create logos that might wind up being used in actual websites and promotional materials. If they aren’t of the digital persuasion, they could submit their art to IVoteForArt.com, a site where people can vote on the art they like and even buy it if the mood strikes. Not every artist’s work gets accepted, but a student could certainly try. Or by registering at ArtFlock, they can create their own gallery, show off their best work and set prices if they are so motivated. If they have an idea that might fall a little closer into the pop culture world, they could submit it to Threadless. If enough people dig the idea, they’d get to see their design made into a T-Shirt and receive a tidy sum.

Outside of the world of capitalism, there are plenty of opportunities too. One of my favorite sites is TakingItGlobal.org, and they regularly have art challenges for people to participate in. This month the challenge is, “Submit a postcard design that illustrates what actions your government should take in hopes of building a sustainable future for us all.”

With all that mind mind, it really does make me wonder just how many projects we have students working on everyday that could be modified slightly to become authentic experiences that have real world implications.

UPDATE: After posting this, I returned to the CrowdSpring site and clicked through to their blog. Low and behold, the first post there was about a 16 year old student who was applying to become their community manager. Instead of submitting a traditional resume, he sent this in instead:


Stop-Motion App-uh-lu-cat-ion from Judson on Vimeo

Think he’ll have trouble finding a job he’s passionate about? I think it’ll be harder keeping him passionate about his school work until he moves into the real world. Pretty incredible.

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Dec 01
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Too much blogging?

Computer CrashImage by mamassage via FlickrIt’s been a long time since I blogged daily for a week, much less a full month. I gotta admit, it has been exhausting to do so. Researching, sketching out and then writing each of those challenges every day was much more work than I’d originally thought it would be. However, as I look back on it, I can’t help but think to myself… was I doing any more work than the average middle school student probably does for homework on a daily basis? And the answer is no.

Has ‘normal’ work and family life spoiled me? I don’t think so. I do think I have a pretty healthy balance in my life right now, but adding that extra hour or two that it took to hammer out those challenges definitely put a strain on things. I can’t help but think that this must be how many students are feeling every night.

The big difference is, I chose to do that challenge. And now I can choose to take a break from blogging if I want to. So my question to you is:

If a student came up to you and told you that s/he was getting burnt out and needed a night off, would you let them take a ‘balance night’ and skip that night’s assignment?

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Nov 30
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Day 30: Choose Your Own Adventure

Thirty challenges in thirty days. It all sounded so simple when we first got started. I never would have expected that there would be multiple days when I’m typing furiously at the 11th hour to try to squeeze the entry in before the clock ticks over! Or that nearly 60 people would list themselves on the wiki as participating in the challenge. Additionally, there has been a grand total of nearly 700 comments and trackbacks on challenge posts throughout the last 30 days. It really is pretty humbling to have had so many people participate together. And the best thing about it is that while today is the final post of the challenge, that doesn’t mean that it’s going to be ending. Anybody can pick up and start the challenge at any time! People who just learned about the challenge yesterday could very easily start themselves back on Day 1 and work through it. And if they do, they’ll have the benefit of all of your comments and links to learn from.

So how to wrap up a project like this? I think the only proper way is to turn it over to the participants. So today’s challenge, final one in the series, is for you to choose your own adventure. I saw Alec Couros mention the old adventure series in a recent blog post, and so many things clicked in my head. To me the idea, and challenge, really takes on two meanings.

Original Choose Your Own AdventureImage by mediafury via FlickrThe first meaning is that this last challenge is completely up to you. At some point, you’ve probably thought to yourself, “Hey, is he going to cover this or that?” Have you had an idea for a challenge that just never got addressed in the last 30 days? Do you have a challenge that you think would help make participants a better blogger that you want to share? Well, this is your chance. What is your challenge for the other participants? Share your ideas as comments. After some time has passed, I’ll feed through them and repost them all in the body of this final blog post. So if you have more than one idea, make it very clear that it’s a separate one or even submit it as a second comment. But think about your own tips and ideas for each other and post them here.

The other meaning of ‘choose your own adventure’ is more of a suggestion than a challenge I suppose. And that’s simply this: Ignore any and all advice that anybody has ever given you about blogging… if it doesn’t feel right to you. There are no hard and fast rules about blogging. It’s still a new frontier much like the wild west expansion, except in this case the coast is still nowhere in site. We are still learning what works and what doesn’t. What is ethical and what isn’t, what makes for good pedagogy and what doesn’t pass muster.

So what IS the best way to blog? I can tell you what I’ve done before, along with what’s been successful and what has failed. I can share with you my ideas, my theories, and my speculations, but in the end it all comes down to my own gut instinct based on my experiences. And at the end of the day, I’m no more an expert than anybody else who chooses to share their thoughts. If my ideas seem to vibe with you, then I say run with them. But if there’s a shadow of doubt, don’t squelch it, explore it. Your blog is exactly that… yours. Only you are going to know what the right voice will be, what the right tone will be, and what the right look and feel will be.

I’ve been very happy to share with you my ideas for how to be a better blogger, but in the end you’ll be the one traveling on down the path. So be assertive and take control of your own journey. Heed the advice of others, but don’t follow it just because you respect them. Evaluate it for yourself, and so long as you are true to yourself, your blog will be a success, regardless of how you define it.

So with that, consider this the conclusion of the 30 Days to Being a Better Blogger challenge! Thank you to everyone that participated in it. I’d like to add a special thank you to John, Jenny, and Jason who put together and maintained the 30D2BBB Wiki. Major kudos to them for taking that on!

And now, I’ll leave the challenge into your very capable hands. Throw down the gauntlet and issue a challenge of your own for the group. And once you’ve done that, return to your own blog and choose your own adventure!

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Nov 29
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Day 29: Be a Rock Star

With only two days to go, I’ve been struggling with how to wrap this challenge up. The closer I get to the end, the more I realize how much more I’d like to share. Part of the dilemma for me is that this challenge has not really discussed the ’spiritual’ side of blogging very much. I’ve tried very hard to make each of these challenges an actionable item, something concrete that you can actually DO to improve your blog, your blogging toolbox, and your skills as a blogger. However, there’s certainly more to blogging than widgets, feeds, links and comments. I was very thankful that the tips shared by other bloggers on Day 27 hit on so many other pieces that I thought ought to be covered. However, there’s just a few points that I wanted to share my own spin on.

For lack of a better way to describe it, today’s challenge is to go out there and be a rock star! What’s the difference between a rock star performing in their garage and a rock star performing in a stadium filled to capacity? Absolutely nothing… in their own mind. A true rock star puts as much effort into every rehearsal and every show, regardless of the size of the audience. They do so because they love performing and they want to share it with anyone and everyone.

Blogging is very similar to this. Every blog starts off with an audience of zero. We all started out talking to ourselves. We all tried to figure out how to draw an audience. We were all thrilled and amazed the first time we realized that a few people had visited our blog. We all get a smile on our face when we see that someone has taken the time to leave a comment, and a scowl if we learn that it was spam! But if you were to compare yesterday’s blog posts to many people’s very first blog posts, I don’t think you’d find them all that different.

So with that in mind, consider this carte blanche to go ahead and blog as though you already have an audience of thousands. Go ahead and promote the blog posts you’re proud of in full confidence that they’re worth sharing with anyone and everyone. Be bold enough to ask other people to participate in your surveys, polls and memes, regardless of whether you feel you’re ‘on the same level’ as them. Rankings be damned, we’re all educators who are linked together by our common desire to share and learn with each other.

Educators are not marketers, and I’ve found that more often than not most budding bloggers are almost embarrassed by their blogs. When they tell me about their blogs, they add to their descriptions phrases like, “well, it’s just a first effort” or “it doesn’t have any readers yet” or “I’m just playing around” or “I’m just trying to catch up to everyone else.” I can’t help but think to myself that anybody who is putting themselves out there and blogging should be nothing but proud of their own efforts! It takes time, commitment and confidence to stand up and share your thoughts with the world, and anybody who does so should be applauded.

With that in mind, I truly think you should take pride in your efforts. Don’t be shy about listing it as your URL on social sites. Add it to your signature in emails. Create yourself a set of Moo cards for when you meet other educators. Let your colleagues at school know about it, as well as your administrators (if you don’t feel comfortable sharing it with them, you might want to spend some time thinking about why). Let your parents, friends and relatives know about it so they can check it out too! Announce your blog posts in places like Twitter, Plurk and Ning. If you think somebody specific ought to see a post, email them a link. Share comments linking back to your blog on pertinent posts from other people.

I truly feel that even if you are the 1,000th person to chime in on a specific topic, your thoughts, ideas and opinions are just as valuable as the first person to chime in. Nobody else has your specific set of experience. The lenses through which you see things are completely unique to you and you may have a spin on things that are pertinent to people. Let’s face it, even if there’s only 2 people out there that would benefit from what you have to say, isn’t that worth the time spent sharing it??

Rock StarImage by AdamNF via FlickrJust as a concrete example of this, think about this 30 Day Challenge in itself. It’s based on Darren Rowse’s 31 Days to Building a Better Blog challenge. I had the challenge flagged for about a year and a half as something that I was interested in. It took me nearly 18 months to finally be ready to act on it. His challenge has had hundreds of participants along with an immense amount of spin off challenges created from it. I could very easily have just taken his challenge and followed through it step by step and added my name to the list of participants, which was my original intention. However, the more I thought about it, the more I realized that it would be more valuable to ME to create my own mashup of it, focusing on challenges that would be pertinent to educators. There are plenty of other places to get blogging advce or challenges to participate in, but I was hoping that there might be a few people who would get some benefit from joining me for this one. I’ve been stunned by the turnout.

Point being, this could have been a month long fiasco! Some of my other endeavors have been spectacular failures before. But you have to put yourself out there and give yourself a chance at success. It’s all a learning experience, regardless of the result.

When you get right down to it, the best way to be a successful blogger… is to be one. To put yourself out there, to be bold and promote yourself, to be confident in your worth and quite simply to be the Rock Star you truly are.

So today’s challenge is to give yourself the rock star treatment. The details are entirely up to you. Maybe you’ll direct message a few people on Twitter and ask them to take a look at a recent blog post of yours. Maybe you’ll add your blog to your email signature. Maybe you’ll give some friends a call and ask them to check out your blog. Maybe it’ll just be leaving a comment here and asking people to come visit it and leave a comment. Only you can know what kind of Rock Star you are, so do what feels right for you.

Then take the time to share what being a Rock Star means to you.

And tomorrow, we wrap the whole thing up! Anybody else getting misty eyed?

30d2bbb image by Jason Robertshaw is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States License

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Nov 28
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Day 28: Link It Up

One of the most significant things about the internet is the able to connect different pieces of it through hyperlinking. In fact, it is often said that hyperlinks are the glue that hold the entire internet together. Can you even imagine an internet without hyperlinks? You’d have to memorize every site you want to visit and type them all in one at a time when you wanted to switch between sites. However, in blogging they have a slew of other purposes.

If you think of blogging as a conversation, it is hyperlinks that allow us to connect the voices together. It is a means for citing information, recognizing original ideas, and giving credit where it’s due. It also allows us to make subtle recommendations for further reading and directs traffic between like minded individuals. Additionally, it provides a reference for the people being linked to, in order to see who has taken their material and spun off of it. There are thousands of plugins, widgets, and snippets of code that are designed to take embedded hyperlinks and add functionality. Some provide previews of the page being linked to, others recognize if it’s media and provide a means for consuming it, while others simple tally the links and aggregate them together.

So what’s the point? If you ain’t linking, then you ain’t thinking. One of the most common questions I get asked is “How do I get people to visit my blog?” Pure and simple, the easiest way is to simply link to others. And not just once either, again and again and again. I may be more egotistical than your average bear, but I certainly don’t think I’m alone amongst bloggers to be keeping an eye on every person who links to me. More often than not, I’m following those links back to see exactly what is being written in reference to my own material. I want to know who is linking to me and why. That has often become the first step to a much more personal relationship. It’s the easiest way to get people’s attention and make them aware of your blog.

So long as we’re on the ego part, let’s just flat out say, most bloggers want a larger audience. Whether you’re willing to make that a priority or not is a whole different conversation. But nobody would mind terribly if more people knew about them and read their work. Google is a big piece of this, and one way that Google determines your page rank is links. Being religious about linking is always something that makes Google happy. Especially if that link winds up being returned.

A broad metal chain.Image via WikipediaOne thing to keep in mind is that when you’re linking to a blog, there are two ways to do it. There is the general link and the link to the specific post, or permalink. For example, if I wanted to talk about Scott McLeod’s recent blog post regarding how various EduBlogger’s rate according to Technorati, I could do so in three different ways. The first is to refer to Scott McLeod and his blog in general. For this, I would just highlight his name and/or blog and link directly to it, as I did. This allows readers to follow back to Scott, AND if Scott has any sort of EgoFeed created, that link will show up.

However, since I’m referring to a specific post of his, I should also be sure to link directly to the permalink. The permalink usually is available in one of three places: the title of the blog post, the date/time of the post (if it’s hyperlinked) or at the end, referenced by the word Permalink or sometimes Trackback. Copying any of those links and then providing a direct link to them, will not only allow readers to follow through and alert the original author (Scott) of the connection, but it will also send a signal to the BLOG ENGINE, letting it know that I’m linking to it. Some blog engines will then be smart enough to list information about that link as a special comment known as a trackback or pingback.

Finally, the last type of link is linking to a specific comment. Many blog engines assign a different permalink to each individual comment, so if you happen to be referring to one, you can link directly to it. This level of linking is really more of a service to your readers than anything else, as it prevents them from having to search through the post to find what you’re referring to.

And of course, you may find yourself needing to combine all three in a single post, or even a single sentence. For example:

In Scott McLeod’s recent blog post about the Top 50 EduBlogs, Miguel makes a great point about the impact moving your blog to a new URL can have on your ranking.

While that may seem like a little overkill, trust me it isn’t. Each link there serves a very specific purpose and is useful to your readers.

So long as I’m in full disclosure mode, I’ll ‘fess up to the fact that I have one really poor habit I’m trying to break. I tend to write my blog posts in one fell swoop, and then going back and linking everything in. Unfortunately, when I do that, I tend to gloss over some links and rush things, often missing significant links. Case in point, when I missed the link to Lee Kolbert’s Meme on Day 27. Thankfully, she pointed out the error to me and I corrected it. For that reason though, I do recommend that you link as you go. Yes, that’s a personal preference, but I find it to be more efficient. And don’t forget, mo’ links is mo’ better.

So today’s challenge is twofold:
1) Go back through your last few posts and hunt for links that you may have missed. Could you have done a better job? Are there any things that you should have linked that you might have missed? Any places you could have added value by inserting more links?
2) The next blog post you write, go crazy on the linking. Every paragraph, think to yourself… Should this be linked up to something providing more information? Should I include a link to a definition for people that may not know the term? Should I share a few examples via links? It’s OK if it looks silly, it’s just about retraining the brain a little. And sometimes you just gotta dive in headfirst to get some quality swim time in.

What have your own experiences with linking been? Do bother? Are you religious about it? And don’t forget, when you create your blog post, share a link to it here!

One other thing, if you haven’t already listed yourself on the Wiki, please do so! Don’t worry if you haven’t ‘kept up’. This is an ongoing challenge, so even if you’ve only done one day, or have just followed along vicariously, share your own information on the wiki so people can find, visit and support your own efforts to be a better blogger!

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