BLOGOSPHERE Information professionals guiding you to the best bits of the blogosphere

Less than a year ago, Gráinne Conole was sceptical of the whole idea of blogging. But after deciding to suck it and see, the OU's professor of e-learning has found it eminently to her taste
Q Where is your blog?
A e4innovation.com I have been writing it since September 2007.
Q Describe your blog and what's on it.
A It's about e-learning innovation: research, evaluation, practice and policy.
Q What started you blogging?
A I never understood how people had the time to blog, nor was I quite convinced about the value, but back in September I decide that rather than have a negative view I would try it and see, and I was really amazed at how valuable it was, that it was a complementary outlet for some of my activities. One criticism I have of the blogosphere is that there is not enough mainstream educational researchers in there yet. I want to encourage more people to get into it.
Q Do you comment on other blogs and what is the value of it?
A It's hugely valuable to comment. As somebody who blogs, I find it motivating when people comment. You start building a community; it's a very good way to get to know new people. It's also a new form of academic discourse. It's not the same as writing a fully fledged paper where you have formulated your thoughts and are writing a story. People have - jokingly, I hope - described my blog as a stream of consciousness as opposed to the more perfectly formed type, but I think it just depends on your style.
Q How does your organisation benefit from your presence in the blogosphere?
A It has proved useful in a range of ways, both for communicating and disseminating the work of colleagues and also for summarising ideas I have seen at conferences. I've found the blogosphere community just so interesting. I've been amazed at who reads it and the international spread with people commenting on my blogs. It's also a useful
repository for my thoughts. More and more, I'm telling people they can find the information they want from me on my blog. It acts like a digital research diary.
Q What do you get out of it for your career?
A I think it has raised my profile in new areas. It still freaks me out slightly when I meet new people and they say they enjoy reading my blog! I have had contact with readers in Saudi Arabia and Iran. You see people come through from all over the place; it's very motivating. When you are at conferences, you start to think, what do I want to write
about? Is there an angle there related to the work that I am doing? I always hated having a static researcher website that listed my name and publications. I always found it
a real bind trying to keep it up to date, whereas this blog is on my own site and under my control. Somehow it's much more motivating to keep it up to date. You can tell a lot about someone's personality from the way they blog. It allows for a much more personal touch.
Q What good things have happened to you that could only have happened because of blogging?
A I have had quite a few invitations to events that came as a result of the blog, such as being a keynote speaker at an event in Saudi Arabia (which unfortunately I couldn't attend).
Q Which blogs do you read for fun?
A I don't read any blogs just for fun, although I do use Twitter for fun as well as business. I think Twitter's brilliant. It's a bit like mini-blogging with an interesting mix of people. It seems to have gone mad recently. It is very addictive!
Q Which bloggers do you watch and link to?
A I must follow around a hundred but some of my favourites are;
Martin Weller on the Ed Techie blog
George Siemens in Canada at the Elearnspace blog
Terry Anderson at Eduspaces
AJ Cann writing at Science of the Invisible
and Stephen Downes, who everybody reads on Stephen's Web