But I digress. I thought that I'd take the opportunity between assignments to throw up some quick points to help people with their blogs. I'm not a great blogger by any means, but I can at least offer some hints and ideas... because blogs do present a great opportunity to offer a glimpse into the mind to show your work amongst other things.
Half of the stuff I'm going to mention are the sort of things I used to do in paper format when I was making books for my animation projects at City College Manchester
Gosh, I really hope I'm not coming across as impetuous. Just sharing information that could be useful.
1. Show Development
I used to take this approach with my work books, and it as an approach that I'm now taking with my blog as well... I would really say that it would be a great idea to make use of a journal as well, and I do this at present with the sketchbook I bring into class.
Basically, use your blog as if you were writing a diary. Write down your thoughts and ideas as they cross your mind, and update as you do further work and allow those ideas to evolve. Not only will it show off your work process for others to look at and get an insight into what you're trying to achieve, it is always a great thing to watch how your work evolves from humble ideas into the final work you hand into class. It can help you look through your ideas and see how they sound once they're out of the mind and onto the screen/page and then later you can talk about how and why these ideas may have changed over the course of any work/assignment you do - being able to show how you came up with your finished work is always a great benefit. You can get feedback from classmates as well.
Even if you scan pages from your books or upload doodles, it helps. In short, treat the blog as a window into your mind's workings, and it helps to learn more about each other.
2. Share Information
See something that could be useful to everyone else? Write about it, provide a link so everyone else can have a look. Earn prestige and respect upon your amazed classmates. Or even if it is just something that you find really cool, like a video or a website, you should share it!
I've often made it my business to provide links to the websites I've been using or the articles I've read, a little bit like writing an appendix so that people can find out more about whatever I might be referring to or talking about. I'm going to try and do more of this, and soon I'll see about making a blog entry for some points of interest in Manchester, like some places to buy art supplies or the ever wonderful Nexus Art Cafe hidden in the Northern Quarter (They make great pie!)
3. Blog Frequently
This really shouldn't be it's own category, but I'm already struggling to come up with anything else after the first two points.
But yes. It is quite important to try and keep up to date with your blog... at least, if you want people to be seeing what you're working on. A blog that is only updated to upload work isn't nearly as interesting, and naturally increases the chances that people may skip over your blog. And you don't want that, do you?
4. Reviews!
A category that I have not started with yet. But I'll explain it none the less.
Even if it is worded simply, you can talk about a video you've seen or a game that you've played stating why you liked or disliked it, or if there were any particular elements that you thought was great or terrible. You never know if someone else in the class might be interested in playing said game or watching said video.
This doesn't really fall so much into the Share Information bit simply because it is more opinion based. Your reasons why the thing you are looking at is great or feeble. This could even fall into the category of opinion pieces. For example, I'm thinking about writing up some thoughts on how Final Fantasy 7 could be remade today... but why it will probably NEVER happen.
...
So yes. I hope these points are helpful in some way.
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