Though I have heard about the word “Blog” I never realized until a couple of weeks ago that I too can join the Club of “Bloggers” when my close friend from Boston said that I should go the Blog way when I discussed with him about a concept I had in mind.

I had been sharing, for  quite sometime, useful and relevant information with close friends and relatives.  For eg. I shared recently with them a few free Online courses targeted at Parents and students.   “Parenting in the Digital Age”  was one of the Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) and it was aimed at Parents.   [Incidentally, I will be contributing another blog post as to what is my understanding of MOOCs ].   The course content was very relevant for Parents, especially when the kids spend a relatively more time with modern Gadgets – Smartphones, gaming systems, ipads,  ipods, tablets or other digital devices.  With access to the Internet, these devices allow children to connect to others in ways we never could have imagined. With the proliferation of these devices comes the concerns about Cyberbulling,   media literacy, and exposure to inappropriate content.   I thought I should share the details of this course with Parents, who otherwise would have missed it.   Because, for Parents, keeping up with their children’s use of technology can be a daunting challenge.  A few of the questions this course attempted to explore were:  what can parents do to help use these devices responsibly? when online, how can Parents make sure their children are safe? What can Parents do to prevent the sharing of personally identifiable information? Parents would hugely benefit from courses like this and in turn can help their children with a view to guiding them effectively.

There was yet another occasion when I shared a news item with my friends and relatives.  An Indian origin girl (Viirginia born) made history  by receiving University admission offers from 14 top US Universities, including 8 Ivy League universities.  Her academic and non-academic achievements made her to become so famous at the age of 17.  I thought this should be shared with those involved in children’s education, so that the children get motivated and follow this girl’s foot steps.

As I am passionate about sharing this kind of information or news item and as I wanted to share them with a wider audience, I started putting my ideas and thoughts together on how best I should take this forward to its logical conclusion.  I captured my ideas using a Mindmap   and shared it with my friend and sought his feedback.  [I will be contributing yet another blog post as to how I benefitted from Mindmaps  tool to collect and share my thoughts]. It was in this context my friend suggested that Blog is a good candidate for this purpose and he suggested that I read more about Blogs and blogging.

I have illustrated below my understanding of Blog. My understanding is based on the sources available on Public Domain.  As I have a tendency to understand and appreciate illustrations much better than in a descriptive format,  I preferred Mindmap for this illustration.

I welcome your feedback. Thanks.