Learn to Blog for Fun and Profit!
Category: Navel Gazing...
Posted Wednesday, December 31, 2003 at 10:09 AM [GMT-6]

The International Webmasters Association/HTML Writers Guild (IWA-HWG) is offering a four-week online course entitled "Blogging Basics with Movable Type" starting February 16. For only $160 ($60 if you're a member), you'll master topics such as:

• What's a Blog?


• Configuring Your Blog


• Writing Your Blog


• Promoting Your Blog

I suspect that if you're a blogger, your initial reaction to this offering is one of righteous condescension. "A class to teach blogging?! Why, I didn't have no class when I learned to blog, way back in Ought One! I didn't need no stinkin' class, neither! What's this younger generation coming to, anyways?"

But, if you're honest with yourself (and you know that these comments are self-directed) you'll admit that, well, it would have been sort of nice to have a little training up-front, at least on the technical side of things.

The teacher, Kynn Bartlett, is an experienced blogger, and currently maintains or participates in four blogs (one of which is Mac-related, so he's obviously well-qualified, and another is a Large Mammal, so he's apparently got some readers). The students will thus get some advice and training from someone with real-world blogging experience.

Still, I can't help wondering if the students in this course will miss out on one of the more valuable experiences of starting a blog, and that's the serendipitous ministrations of fellow bloggers who drop by to give a hand or a word of advice or a bit of encouragement to newbies. I experienced that firsthand, and it was great. It is still going on, isn't it?