Why not! When mobile phones first came out did any of your friends not want one? Answer, yes and now in 2011 mobile phones are the norm. According to www.nationmaster.com the stats have changed- UK 84.49%, Ireland 75.53%, United States 48.81%, Hong Kong 92.98% and Italy 92.65% of people now own mobile phones, the same will probably happen to blogs and will definitely happen to your on-line presence.

If you are not on-line then you do not have a presence!!

Everyone should have a blog, when I went to the ICT conference in Thrules (#ictedu on Twitter) I happened to sit beside the MD of an e-learning company. We chatted, he said he would like contact details to discuss the possibility discussing ICT teacher training, so I gave my web site address. Now if you are in talks with an e-learning specialist and they want to discuss opportunities with you…..well nothing seals a deal like saying “here is my web site, twitter and LinkedIn” he was well impressed and told me so!! I walked around for the rest of the day with a knowing smile but I was also smiling as the conference was just fantastic. The people attending took notes using their mobile phones via picture, video and recording. They would then tweet to #ictedu all day to let the world know how the conference was going!

 The memory in my phone was taken up with old lectures from Hibernia college so I had to use a pen and do a strange thing called writing, actual physical writing! So I used the most expensive pen I had….if I was going to use this archaic system of note taking at least a gal could do was do it in style. Of course having luminous orange nail varnish helped the “I still use a pen” look! For more on the conference check out http://www.anseo-a-mhuinteoir.com/ Here are some videos from it, they are all well worth a look http://vimeo.com/23724480 back to blogging ten years time having a web site will be like having a mobile phone so get on board now, please don’t be one of those “sure I don’t know how to” If I can learn to drive then you can set up, manage and promote your blog!

Why do I blog? Well for me – I have never been part of a spots team, I never had the interest of I felt
the talent. I only started to blog a month ago and I love it. I have learnt so much about HTML, search words, web site optimisations, promoting your site and e-networking to get people to your site. The actual end product of the blog is not as important or as fun as the actual process of changing your HTML code, adding gadgets, creating graphics, using Google AdSense, researching your audience…actually having an audience!!!

“Himself” was concerned I was becoming addicted to “the blogging process” but now he understands
that TV is no longer an interest to me, sports was never an interest. Now my interest are ICT, learning and in sharing my interest about the primary school curriculum, I suppose the fact that I did my post grad with Hibernia College, a virtual college where I studied via blended learning, leads to the fact that I am now interested in ICT.

This blogging thing also meets my “WIFM” something I picked up from the IFSC business world.
For me it is that I am slowly beginning to see the power of the web and I want to understand it and tame it for my purposes!! I want to have  a successful blog…..just because it is something that I can actually achieve, this can be the sports medal I never won! To set up your blog you just go to http://www.blogger.com/home log in with your Gmail account and just follow the “wizard GUI”, that is just a tech term for just suss it out and look at the tabs on the dashboard that is the page where you can add posts, set it up the way you want and change it. I will be posting more on meta tags, getting listed on Google, using HTML and gadgets and lot more in relation to blogging how to!