Teaching Blogging for the Little Journalists
Very excited to be one of the mentors for the ‘Little Journalists’ program. My session today is on Blogging and how the kids can ace it.
Training the ‘Little Journalists’ on Blogging
A wonderful initiative by the Hindustan International School and Hafiz Khan’s eZone to train school students on the nuances on media. The kids get trained on positive journalism which includes broadcast, Radio, Print and Online journalism.
I look forward to interacting with the young minds and ignite their interest in blogging.
Typing Mastery: The Quest for an Error-free 70 Words Per Minute
I have always been decent in typewriting. I learnt this during my 10th standard annual vacations and that has laid a good foundation. However, I don’t know how to operate the number keys and the special characters.
Offlate, I noticed a lot of errors in my typing. This started to slow down my typing and worse, it has started to affect my flow of thoughts. And so I set off on a mission to brush up on my typing lessons. My goal: 70 words per minute with less than 1% errors.
I took up a paid subscription in GoodTyping.com, one of the best online typing mastery websites. I finished all the 48 typing lessons in the last one month. I devoted about half hour each day to practice the lessons and now I average about 50 words per minute with about 2% errors. I intend to take advanced tests every day and my goal is to touch 70 WPM with 1% errors by July 31st.
Why is flawless typing so important to me? For two main reasons. I have been consciously focusing on blogging everyday and aiming to complete the 1000 day blogging challenge. Second, I’m focused on finishing two books this year. Both these ambitious goals require a considerable amount of time at the keyboard. The better I am at typing means the better I will do at both these challenges.
Have you heard of this story of this woodcutter who spent sharpening his axe? That’s the same thing for me with typing.
I would strongly recommend one of two online courses for improving your typing. GoodTyping and KeyHero.
KeyHero, is what I use to test my typing skills in order to reduce the errors.
Doing an Encore: Announcing the Second Edition of the Himalayan Blogging & Podcasting Retreat
The success of the first edition of the ‘Himalayan Blogging and Podcasting Retreat‘ was very heartening. The participants gave a rating of 4.8 out of 5.
This motivated me and Chetan Mahajan, the brain behind the Himalayan Writing Retreat, to plan for the second edition. The experience in the first edition gave us lots of confidence. The valuable input motivated us to revise the syllabi and introduce advanced topics. We aim to move the bar many notches higher for the second edition.
We increased the duration of the retreat from three days to four days. This way, we can go into greater details and dive in-depth into the subject. One important thing we realised from the first edition was that in addition to the technical nitty-gritties, the art of writing and scripting is equally important. Chetan, the ex-CEO of HCL Learning, a Penguin published author and a blogger himself, will lead the sessions. For the blogging and podcasting part, I dig into my two decades of experience in blogging and a decade in podcasting to share the best practices.
The dates are September 20 to 24, 2017. The venue is the beautiful village of Satoli in the Nainital district, surrounded by the Kumaon mountain range. Yup, the photo you see below is the actual view from the retreat venue!!
The first retreat was a huge morale booster for me. It motivated me to take the ambitious ‘1000 Days Blogging Challenge‘ which I’m very proud of. At the end of the Blogging & Podcasting retreat, I’ve also decided to stay back in the mountains to attend the one week long ‘Himalayan Writing Retreat’ from October 1 to 8. The main reason? It’s led by best-selling author Manu Joseph himself.
The 1000 Days Blogging Challenge
I’m ashamed. I’ll tell you why.
I have been among the earliest bloggers in India who started way back in 2002. I’ve drafted blogging curriculum for universities. Conducted lots of workshops. Consulted for large corporations on blogging strategies. Heck, one of my companies is even called ‘Business Blogging’. Yet, I’ve been grossly inconsistent in blogging.
Recently, I co-hosted the ‘Himalayan Blogging and Podcasting Retreat‘. A dozen participants flew in from various parts of India for a 3-day intensive workshop. One of the participants, the very affable Sangeeta Mahajan, has been continuously blogging for 925 days. And counting. That’s right. Blogging every single day. And I am to teach her blogging?!
There was this guilt gnawing inside me. It was time to take corrective action.
At the end of the workshop, each of us listed down our ‘Big Hairy Audacious Goal’. Something that will help us push our own boundaries. Something that will force us to get out of the comfort zone. When my turn came up, this is what I said.
To Produce Original Content Every Single Day for the Next 1000 Days
To Produce Original Content Every
(Original content can be an audio podcast, YouTube video, Facebook status or a newspaper column.)
And these will go up on Kiruba.com as blog posts. Every single day.
Thank you, Sangeeta. You came to learn from me. You also taught me.