The Audience

The purpose of the Day Four assignment is to learn how to embellish your blog with outside resources that are attractive to your ideal audience.  My ideal audience is other people who are trying to learn to write, and enjoy the ups and downs I experience as I continue to hone my skills. Since this blog site is dedicated to learning how to write–and write a good blog or other written work–I checked YouTube for some animated videos that might discuss the writing process in simple to understand terms.  I decided that there probably would be a lot less “learning to write” information on sites like Twitter, Pinterest, Facebook, and other sites that would “show” how to write.  The great thing about YouTube is that it actually gives you code to embed in your blog to include this video.

Before I set you loose on the video, it may be that you need to have a Youtube account to view the clip, since it is a secure site.  But how could I think that anyone might still not have one?  Just in case you don’t, go to this link http://www.youtube.com/ and sign up.  According to McAffee internet security, this is a safe video on a safe site. What more could you ask for?

How I found this video

Since I am always looking for seminars (preferably free) that are both entertaining and educational, I hunted around a bit on YouTube, making several search attempts based on the theme “learning to write right,” until I finally changed the hunt to “writing process” and hit on this video from several years ago that discusses–in just 13 minutes–what you need to do to write–especially to write well.  Although the majors purpose of this video is to teach a bit about writing blogs, it clearly states that it is also a great technique for writing other things, like essays, stories, and almost any writing purpose.  In essence, it is a perfect little gem of a lesson that helps its watchers get started in writing.

For me, having taught students of all ages how to write, I only wish something like this had been available for most of the years when I was actively teaching in one capacity or another.  But a lot of that was back in the Stone Age when the computer was used for purposes other than canned video lessons and online schools.  Even after I began to teach online, videos like this either did not exist, or I would have had to learn to program all over again to either provide a personal video on the topic or ask someone else to video a process for me.  The whole idea of using animation the way Jonathan does it not only would never have occurred to me, but I didn’t have the skills to do what he does.  In fact, I still don’t have skills, but this clip gives me reason to teach myself how to do it and do it as effectively as he does, with or without ongoing illustrations to take us on a wonderful little journey of good blogging and writing techniques.

Let me know what you think. If I would include more videos like this, would you want to come back to my blog to see what new teaching/learning tool I’ve found?  Or is thirteen minutes too long to spend to learn a bit about a technique that could revolutionize your own writing? This may not be the perfect solution for everyone, but you have to admit that Jonathan provides both great information and a lot of entertainment as he takes us through the process of writing with great visuals to help it stick in our minds..

Enjoy! And, in the comments, please let me know what you think!

#educ_dr