What I Learned From 2007 - Sarah Stewart

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WILF ChristmasInquiring minds want to know: What were the most amazing, profound, surprising, or even whacky things you’ve learned over the last year?

Here’s an entry from Sarah Stewart of Sarah’s Musings (now there’s a blog name that resonates with me!) a New Zealand site oriented toward healthcare and midwifery:

What I have learned from 2007

My name is Sarah and I am a midwifery educator and PhD candidate interested in how health professionals support each other in order to continue their professional learning and development. I am a newbie blogger having started my blog in August 2007. So a lot of my learning in 2007 was centered on how to develop a blog and use various Internet tools.

August - What I learned was I love my 19 year old daughter very much but she drives me mad when I live with her. So now we have found a happy medium – she is flatting with friends about 10 minutes drive away – so we see each other when we want to ‘bond’(ie when she wants money or food) but do not have to put up with each other’s annoying habits on a daily basis (Return of the Prodigal Daughter).

September - It took most of this month to get my head around the complexities of blogging and I learnt a number of tips about building a readership, connecting with other blogs and leaving comments (A Severe Case of Head Spin).

October - Writing about personal thoughts and fears can be very scary especially if it is in a professional arena. Considerable thought must be put into the degree of disclosure – on the one hand it is good to be honest but on the other hand, complete frankness may be professionally damaging. In this post, I wrote some extremely personal things and it was fabulous to get it off my chest and I feel much better for it. What surprised me was that I did not get the comments and response that I thought I would – I would love to know why because I thought it was a fairly controversial and challenging post for midwives (Are You a Fearful Midwife?).

November - It’s going to take some serious work to get midwives interested in using online communication and collaboration tools. I will need to overcome barriers such as lack of education and confidence as well as time constraints in order for midwives to see how valuable social networking is for ongoing learning and development (The Outcome of the Online Midwifery Research Meeting).

December - Finally, I have decided what the thrust or theme of this blog should be: ongoing professional development, education, e-learning and mentoring for health professionals especially midwives. I am really passionate about the value of Web 2.0 for professional development which is what I want this blog to concentrate on (Thinking About the Aim of This Blog).

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So what’s it all about?

Friends, if you’ve written about it at your blog in 2007, then you’re invited to join us for this special edition of What I Learned From… Care to share with us your favorite/ best/ most controversial/ strangest, etc. posts? (You get to pick one from each month you’ve been blogging in 2007.)

Well, don’t just sit there like a bump on a pickle; click the link, check out the simple instructions, and jump right in! Get your entries in by Sunday night, January 13, and I’ll publish them all right here at Middle Zone Musings.

You know, it would just be absolutely finer than a frogs hair if you would subscribe to my RSS feed!

4 responses so far

4 Responses to “What I Learned From 2007 - Sarah Stewart”

  1. [...] post by Middle Zone Musings Share and Enjoy: These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and [...]

  2. Sarah Stewarton Jan 9th 2008 at 2:31 pm

    Thanks for that, Robert. I chose ‘musings’ off the top of my head and before I had read any other blogs. I didn’t appreciate just how ‘musing’ went on!

  3. Joanna Youngon Jan 9th 2008 at 3:18 pm

    Hi Sarah, good for you for sharing your blogging journey with us :-)

    I loved your post on the aim of this blog - we’ve all been through some of those tussles and part of the power of blogging is that it allows us to develop our thoughts and ideas as we go, to find out what it is that we’re really passionate about. Now that you’ve tapped into your core aim I’m sure your blog will fly in 2008!

    Joanna

  4. [...] Sarah Stewart, at Sarah’s Musings [...]

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