As a professor, a major part of my job was to examine my knowledge for areas that I knew and understood well that might be of use to my students. When I found one, I checked to see if it was included in one or another of the courses I taught. If not, I considered offering a course in that subject. For teachers, there are background subjects such as basic statistical methods, but there are also more professionally specific topics such as the state's educational standards in various branches of knowledge, like the Wisconsin mathematics or history standards.
Once I started putting the content of a course online where students could visit the web site at any time instead of having to all be in the classroom at a particular time, I had more time to work on student work, with fewer hours scheduled to sit with students. When I retired, it was natural for me to continue looking at my knowledge and ideas and ways to record and explore them. So, blogging seemed a natural activity.
The main thing that I felt I knew something about that seemed to need broadcasting and publicity was meditation. So, I started a blog on meditation: how to do it, why to do it, the worth of doing it. I knew that I wasn't interested in having ads on the blog site and that I was writing about my ideas, so I didn't care if others read what I wrote or not. Or so, I thought.
Then, I found out that over time, it was much more satisfying when an intelligent and open-minded person did read what I wrote and maybe commented on the writing once in a while. I also found the subject of meditation was definitely limited. Yes, mindfulness about my attention was valuable. But there are not a large number of ways to recommend it. I realized that as a retired person, I was free to write about anything I wanted.
I try to blog about interesting subjects and use good language, wording that stimulates, amuses and educates. I found that emailing the blog posts results in more readers and reader comments that just posting.
It is easy, quick and free to start a blog and posts can be made to it at regular or irregular intervals, frequently or just occasionally. I have started several additional blogs for specialized purposes.
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Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety
