Fast forward another 22 days and we will be looking back on a solid month of writing, giving out fingers a well earned rest and wondering how we made it through. But what comes next.
I started the idea to get back into a writing habit and be much more consistent with my blog and the act of reflective writing which I enjoy so much. I don’t know about you but even after just 6 days things are different and I am loving the challenge. Of course having over 100 other educators, bloggers and companions for the journey is making it extra special and I am staggered by the response from everyone involved. There is even a bunch of Grade 5/6’s having a go which, by all accounts, is going down a storm.
So what happens next, the group simply disbands and we go our separate ways, warm and fuzzy inside from the companionship, the new writing connections we made across our network and in our own habit? We find a mountain cabin and spend the rest of the year reading the posts. Or can we continue to develop this idea further.
Here are some ideas that have been shared around already:
- 28 Days of Writing occurs again at some point in the future allowing a new cohort of colleagues the chance to enjoy the journey together.
- 28 Days of Commenting – a fading part of our community in my opinion and something we all should do as much as writing our own content. Perhaps such a clear focus on it will help. Maybe a new group could be writing whilst another is commenting 😉
- A classroom ready version of the challenge – something that is perhaps shorter and gamified for the classroom to get kids enjoying the experience. As I mentioned above it would be lovely to have classes taking part, perhaps looping into #classblogs and the like.
- Developing some strong aggregation tools to help people enjoy the growing number of posts – after all if 100 people write and publish for 28 days that is a significant amount of reading. Any stylish, functional aggregated lists will help. I am thinking a Flipboard magazine or Feedly collections etc
- How might we celebrate the achievement or even the milestones along the way? Writing and publishing for just 7 days straight is a pretty great achievement and that is just 25% of the way through!
- What fun badges could we make for the different types of writing, content and experiences we have along the way?
For this to continue and become an enduring feature of our writing community it will pay to consider some new ideas to take it forward. At the heart of it is a simple idea which no doubt will continue but I would love to see what more we can do to refine it.
What would you like to see next? Please share you own thoughts, ideas and reactions in the comments below.
As ever good luck with your own 28 minutes!
I’d love to join a new challenge! Keep me informed 🙂
Hi Tom,
Firstly thanks again for kicking this off. Like many others I really needed this excuse to get blogging again and I’m hoping that I don’t slip back into only occasional posts after this month is up.
I certainly think that the idea of encouraging commenting is one worth pursuing, especially if we link that to people tweeting a link to the post they just commented on. While blogs have RSS feeds, I’ve always found following comments to be a much harder process, perhaps Twitter can help with that. But for that to happen there needs to be blog posts to comment on and an easy way of finding them. Ultimately, I’d love to see a way of sustaining this community beyond this month, and some kind of aggregation of the blogs of all the people involved might be one option.
Rolling out to classes would be a great idea, perhaps leveraging the quad blogging idea in some form?
Looking forward to seeing what happens, whatever it is that does!
For me, it’s commenting. I get sad when I remember that some posts used to generate discussions of 30-60-90 comments. Having them in one place meant people could join in later, and contribute to our collective smarts. Now, with comments on Facebook, replies on Twitter (publicly and, unhelpfully, in DM), and even by email, it feels like more hard work than ever before to join the dots, to synthesise, to make sense of it all.
Likewise, there’s just a lot more blog out there, and not all of it is obviously relevant – what I mean, is that in ye olde days someone would write about technology, or formative assessment, or creativity, but never all of that in one go. My own blog is a lovely example of total hit and miss in terms of WHAT you’re going to get.
So I’d appreciate a month of commenting, for example, but would need some serious remedial classes from folk who’ve got ideas about to keep it manageable, not a chore, and how to navigate what is a very different blogosphere from when I started 16 years ago.
Thanks Claire for taking part – we all bring different reasons for getting involved and sticking at the challenge, I hope you find it a great outlet for your own reflections as you near the opening of the school. I am sure we will all look back on our time with fondness but more importantly know more about our own writing rhythms moving forward. Good luck and keep me posted if there is anything I can help with.
I am really enjoying the #28daysofwriting challenge! I lost 5 years of blog last year and grieved and then sat on my laurels! I should have just hardened up and got going again but it was really hard to get back into it. I have taken on your challenge as we approach the opening of our new school in NZ and it has proven invaluable so far! I am not sharing in the twitter stream because my goal is about cementing the habit of blogging/ reflecting as opposed to gaining an audience…. One day I might feel that I have something to share but in the meantime, I can’t wait to look back on my journey at the end of this month!