1.2 Reflection on Article Writing

Preramble:?We have made it to my second formal reflection on writing. For those of you still joining us in this digital space, I applaud you for your resilience. Let me reward you with an open critique of my craft and give you ample opportunity to impart your advice in order to better the reading experience.

Mistakes were made

Let us begin at the end:

Can you tell I'm scraping the barrel for professional photos yet? I got sick of using multiple class photos that were from the same lesson and thought I'd branch out. Into a Christmas Carol. Better to reuse photos than be overzealous on the variety of shots used. Ultimately though, the more glaring issue is that I'm publishing articles on a site where my entire career profile is readily available. Why on earth would I need an 'about the author' and a photo for readers to recognise me? That's narcissism dialled up a notch.

Another mistake I would like to illuminate is one I think I would have gotten away with if it weren't for you meddling thoughts of conscience!

To add context, this is a quote from my last reflection for those wishing to start writing:

Reference: Not too many, this isn't to prove you have a well-researched Masters article you actually winged and are crossing your fingers you just get a passing grade. You're a busy person, and so is your audience, so "only include what you have legitimately analysed" not just superficially read.

I've also published an article on the different levels of reading. Analytical reading is a legitimate level of reading. I hold myself to this standard. This time I let go. I only superficially read these articles. My excuse for the SAMR article is that I've been working with this model for years so didn't 'feel the need'. I have no excuse for the Serrano article. The reason for this faux pas is that I did not stick to my pre-writing process for this one and felt the need to publish once more. It's a case of better planning and diligence needed, a continual pursuit it would seem.

Pats on the back

I don't think I have a favourite article amongst the last three published. A couple of changes made come to mind though. Firstly, my change from 'Summary' to 'Preramble' is more fitting to the preface of my articles and allows me to keep the hooky starts.

Secondly, I leaned into an informing style in these articles. This isn't necessarily something I want to remain as a dominant theme but I found the change of pace refreshing.

Let's Review

1. I have now written 9 articles for this newsletter, 3 of which are reflections, and 6 are educationally focused. My initial goal in February was to provide 4 educationally focused articles. Dead chuffed!
2. We've grown from 288 subscribers to 335! However, views are down on average as well as the ratio of reads to impressions. This suggests that the feeds my articles land on are not necessarily targeting those interested in the content I produce. So I either change my content to better suit the eyes they land in front of or I make more concerted efforts to reach an audience interested in my content.
3. I need to account for the variance of cognitive load and workload I experience month-to-month so that my pre-writing process doesn't suffer.

Let's see how my topic sentence structure went

What are 'Healthy Boundaries' when it comes to EdTech? - Topic Sentences

Before we get to defined boundaries, let's look at both sides of the argument. EdTech is having a disruptive innovation currently and that can be...disruptive. I think everyone here has been in more than one debate surrounding screen time. However, there are rebuttals to these arguments against screen time. EdTech evolution has been a constant in Education and has meant that at the age of 16 we can know, understand and do an awful lot more than our predecessors could ever dream of. Yet nowadays we're aware that our working memories typically hold no more than seven items, give or take two. Of course, if we choose to remain cautious in our adoption of EdTech we can expect a workforce that is slower to train. Continuing at our current trajectory we run into risks as well. As with many topics I tend to mull over at night the answer more than likely lies in the synthesis of these critiques. If I could leave you with one thing that has been on my mind of late though.

I was going to share all three articles but that's overkill. I actually think these topic sentences don't do too bad of a job. I'm going to try and make the topic sentences of my closing paragraphs more encompassing. Spending more time on the middle paragraphs to decide if they really are needed. This should hopefully help with brevity.

I just need a way to communicate this systematic reading structure to the readers.

Armchair Advice

I was asked recently by a reader of this newsletter how I find ideas to write about. Which is a brilliant idea for some armchair advice.

So I have a Google Doc that I call 'Article Writing Process'. This has a lot on it and one day I may have the courage to outright share it. For now, I'll explain the segment I've entitled Ideas. These ideas are divided into Short Term and Long Term. What falls into each bucket is determined by the time I think I'll need to run through research as well as writing and editing. Short Term means I can produce it in a month. Long Term a Quarter. The ideas come from my own reading and learning. But mainly from recording thoughts during conversations or comments from others. The key is to always have somewhere to record them as the ideas are more often than not serendipitous. Thus I always have Google Docs ready on my phone for these occasions.

A Last Word

I'm a fan of killing your darlings. Should the readership of my articles decline then so it goes. But if you think there might be readers out there looking for content such as this newsletter provides please do spread the word. I would be eternally grateful.

Your "a very long time but not yet eternal"ly grateful author