by AJ
Teaching about Squidoo and Blogging has its responsibilities
March 11, 2010 in AJ's musings, Featured by AJ
This past couple of weeks AJ has been musing about being a “teacher”
In a galaxy, far, far away (thanks Alex for reminding me of this phrase recently!) I used to be a teacher. Not of children, but adults.
An eclectic mix of ex-offenders (some were probably still offending), substance abusers (current and ex), alcoholics (one returned after lunch totally drunk), kids from the wrong side of town, kids from the right side of town, returners to work following illness, accident or redundancy, single Mums needing to earn in a way that would fit in with their children and others who had no issues at all apart from the fact that they had a business idea and wanted to make it a reality.
They were a “lively” bunch but what made it work, was that they all had something in common and I had the information they wanted and needed. We had a common bond.
I have not taught in the Classroom for a good number of years but all of a sudden I have found myself back in the role of Teacher again, through my Blog AJ is Always Juggling Online and on Squidoo. I did not set out thinking “I am going to teach” – it just sort of evolved…..
As I explore the workings of Matt Cutts’ Link Wheel, under the guidance of Alex (Drifter0658) and try to apply the principles to my new niche blog Year of the Tiger Tattoos, I am also blogging about my progress on a daily basis and outlining what I do, step by step. Yep, I am finally managing to blog nearly every day. And I love it!
However, over the past week or so, the responsibility attached to what I am doing has hit me hard!
I do tend to think deeply about what I do online. Right from when I first joined Squidoo in July 2008, I had a very set idea about the way I would behave and the ethics I would adhere to. Despite my need for anonymity I knew I would want to be as open and honest as that anonymity would allow. And I believe I have kept to that.
When we teach, we tend to teach what we know
OK, that might seem like I am stating the blooming obvious, but bear with me….
A lot of what we know comes not just from what we learn from others, who set out to teach us, but what we learn for ourselves. Research these days is easier than it has ever been. All we do is “Google” what we are looking for and hey presto! It is all there. Everything we could possibly want to know about Belly Button Fluff removal!
We learn and then sometimes we start passing on what we have learned.
But as far as Squidoo and Blogging are concerned, are we teaching the right way to do something or are we teaching the way that WE do something? There can be a difference. The danger is that we can become so entrenched in the Squidoo lensmaking and blogging methods we use that we can miss out on finding out about the other ways to achieve what we want to achieve. When teaching or passing information on, we can fail to present all the options from which people can choose what is right for them.
Over these past few months I have been blogging on Word Press Multi User Platforms, (WPMU) here on Squidlog and on Crabbys Beach. I love it!
I love the sense of Community on a WPMU. I love it that members of the Community will support each other with teaching, passing on information and visiting each other’s blogs. I love the collaboration that is happening on some of the Blogs. I love the fact that the leaders of these Communities, Anne and Alex, are so Community minded and I could never imagine them throwing all their toys out of the pram and just shutting their platforms down.
There is another school of thought that promotes hosting your own blog
Common sense tells us that relying on a platform owned by someone else makes us vulnerable. There could be rule changes that will suddenly disadvantage us, for example. And yes, the toys could fly out of the pram and the Platform could just disappear. Phuttt! Gone!
I have also seen arguments put forward that all you are doing is getting traffic for the Platform. I don’t agree with this and my own Stats go a long way to disproving this as I commented on Susan52’s blog when she asked the question Should you own your own blog? But I am up for setting up my own self hosted sites and seeing what happens.
Recently I have started work on a couple of sites on my own domains – hosted by Anne at SEO Praxis. I am setting them up using the same SEO plugins that I use on Crabbys Beach.
My gut feeling is that the best way to Blog is to use a mix of Multi User Platforms and Self Hosted blogs, as then you will hopefully get the best of both worlds. But I will be interested to see if either method out performs the other as far as traffic is concerned.
But just to take us back to the bit about teaching….
Disclaimer: any teaching I do is based on the way I do things. I am not claiming it is the RIGHT way 
Quoting allthatiscute: Diary of a rabbit owner. Ladies and gentlemen: the story you are about to hear is true. The names have not been changed to protect the innocent, because frankly I don’t care. —
Overheard on twitter...
Wow! I did not know about your new sites, AJ – but I have certainly learned from you and Alex and the link wheel blog and I sincerely appreciate that!
I think anytime we write, we are teaching. Perhaps not directly, but all of our writing is adding to the vast store of information on the net. and yes, there is responsibility with that.
Good luck and much success with those blogs! I am watching and learning from you step-by-step!
Well, I’ve made no secret of saying that you should, once you’ve found yourself a niche, own your own blog. Why? because it’s just bound to be easier to attract links to a self hosted blog. Not that it’s impossible to do so anywhere else of course.
In the end it’s content that determines links, but I do think platform matters too. And setting up ads in a place you own is just easier too.
So I’m glad to hear you’re moving in that direction.
BTW – what does Matt Cuts have to do with link wheels?
Ooops – I made a mistake and confused some of the discussion we have been having on Crabbys Beach, where Alex said something about what Matt Cutts said about Links, NOT Link Wheels!
However, it just goes to show how making a mistake on a post could get you some traffic – it is the same with spelling mistakes in Tags. People searching often spell their search words incorrectly!
This post just really shows that you are from the good old UK. Man you were throwing British English words throughout that post, and I had to get out my British American dictionary.
Although we can all be teachers, we are also human. And being human is what makes us unique. I don’t think that teachers need to be perfect to teach us a lesson. They just need to able to convey their meaning to us.