Mindful Ink     Life, Living and Productivity

Blogging provides a number of functions, and a big one for me is self-education.  Not only is there the benefit of other’s experience (when I’m trying to fix a problem with hardware or software I almost always use Google’s blog search to find recent answers to my problem) and a specialized information source (academic productivity, anyone?) but it also allows a public platform to teach yourself.

Much like the academic homepage we discussed before, your blog allows you a place to focus in on your subject matter - but in a far more intimate way because if you’re blogging correctly it forces you to be more than a passive recipient of information, but respond and consider what these daily occurrences really mean.

You may be asking “why blog, why not just keep a journal?”

One of the advantages of keeping a blog as you research something, over just a private journal, is that if you have readers it helps reinforce the process and keeps you on track.  It also, of course, lets others share in your thinking and, ideally, challenge you.  A conversation will always be a better way to learn than just receiving information.

I did this for a number of years, myself.  In fact, this is how I first began blogging - and I maintained the site in various incarnations for a number of years.  I quit, however, as I found that the stories in my particular subject (religious studies) were becoming supremely repetitive and I simply got sick of writing about religious violence, insipid “new atheists,” and insane fundamentalists.  But, it was a poor decision on my part and even as I write this I’m planning out my new academic blog.

The benefits of the academic blog, largely a private matter and fortunate if it takes off more than that, is you do not have to worry about some of the things you may want to as a “professional blogger.”  Want to use livejournal or blogger?  Great!  Go for it!  You don’t need to worry about getting your own domain and installing software and maintaining it - go to wordpress.com and just sign up and get started!   Or heck, even a Tumblr blog is great for this (and personally, I think this may actually be the best way to go.  You don’t get caught up in so many of the distractions that a normal blog provides.)

So, how do you get started?  Well, the first step is aquiring information.  Find blogs, magazines, news sites that discuss your topic and then create an easy mechanism to deliver the information - the academic homepage, RSS feeds, you can even just customize the Google News page to search for specific keywords.  After that it’s simply a matter of reading, thinking, and commenting.  Make it a daily process, or even a weekly one (though in that case, I’d recommend keeping track of articles through the week and saving the best ones for review at that time.)  Other blogs on the subject are your best resources - as they’ll help you find good information, and then you can join in the conversation by responding to them and they you.  They can also help you find, via what they link to, other good sources on your subject matter.

When I’ve finished re-building my study site, I’ll let you all know.  In the mean time, do any of you do something like this?  Share your links in the comments!   Need help getting started?  Feel free to ask for help, I’m happy to answer any question I can.

Here’s some helpful links on getting started:

• Scholars Who Blog
• BlogScholar
• Ready to Start Blogging?

Ah, memorization… there’s nothing quite so odious in either the academic or the business world. Some people are gifted with the ability to remember every name, date and obscure fact they run across, but most of us have to work at it.

Luckily, there are a number of “tricks” one can employ to help in memorizing those lists of verb endings, functions, and other obscurities. We’re going to list 7 methods here, with lots of great other resources at the end!

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Well, I’ve had the Kindle for a few days now and I’m willing to discuss some of the finer points of usage.

Being able to go from reading your textbook, to today’s New York Times, to finding out a bit more about a subject, then going back to your book - seeing a reference and hopping online, finding the book, and downloading this new book in less than a minute… It’s quite the experience. Living in the future.

The form factor of the Kindle is MUCH slimmer than the videos and pictures gave me the impression of. It’s thicker than the Sony Reader, but not by much. It’s also not nearly as ugly in person. Holding it is awkward for the first little bit, but after a chapter or so of reading you get the hang of it and not accidentally pressing the buttons - you learn to appreciate the button locations (much easier than the Sony Reader.) You get over the fact that it’s ugly REAL quick.

The “experimental” web browser and stuff works but it’s nothing to write home about. This allows access to your email and such, but typing takes so long (slower than on a mobile phone) that you’d really not want to use it - browsing is slow, too. It works for accessing Wikipedia, and that’s really about all you’d want to do with it.

The “checking out a chapter” - something you can do with every book I’ve looked at so far - is great. It helps with impulse buying as well, something I’m very bad with around books. This was actually my biggest concern with the Kindle - I buy a lot of books and then thinking better of it, cancel it. Forcing myself to download the first chapter and read it before I buy helps.

The prices are cheap - most the time. Very rarely do you find something with a high price point, and it is almost always a technical manual or text book of some sort (those guys are just not going to give up the ghost, I’m afraid.) The selection is over 100,000 now and that’s a LOT. A lot more than public domain cheapies and best sellers. I picked up a favorite of mine, Earnest Becker’s Denial of Death which is pretty far from a modern day best seller for $7.99.

It’s not all roses - I ran across a few very badly formatted books, but not many.

The media services are excellent - I’ve been getting the New York Times daily - and it’s been a pleasure to read. The experience is very nice, and even more comfortable than an actual book at times. I can lay in bed and sit the device on my chest and read comfortably for hours - previously, having to turn pages and such, this always got awkward REAL fast.

The annotation and underlining is nice and you can go to any annotation or highlight very quickly from the menu. Annotating a lot of text is ill-advised (due to the speed of typing) but I simply use numbers and write my own notes down anyway.

So, all in all - I couldn’t be happier. I don’t regret the purchase for a moment (and I’m the king of buyer’s remorse) as with my book appetite I will save money in the long run, and my ability to scan and find my books elsewhere means it will be useful no matter what I’m doing.

Obviously, a device like this isn’t for everyone. Me? I love reading… and I’m interested in everything, and a device like this is what I’ve wanted every gadget I’ve ever used to be - I’ve been reading a lot, not just because of it being new, but because I suddenly have a wide variety of books always available. If I don’t feel like reading When Science Meets Religion for school, I can read a magazine or the new Stephen King novel or pick up a book on Semiotics.

If anyone has any questions, feel free to ask in the comments.  And don’t worry - last post about ebooks for a while!

This continues the series on using an eBook reader academically.

Of course, as fun as a shiny new piece of technology is, we must make it work for us. “Geek to live, not live to geek” and all that.You have a few options when it comes to acquiring content for your device.

1. Buy It
2. Scan It
3. Download it from a free source

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