Embedding Video Into Your Blogs

Blogs are multimedia forms of writing. We are able to not only express our thoughts, ideas, and stories in writing, but through video, sound, and other digital forms. If you are blogging about music, movies, or other forms of media, it's always important to include as much forms of video as possible.

For example, one of my favorite video's (and song's) is for Coldplay's "The Scientist." Not only is it a beautiful song, but the video is cleverly told in "reverse" narrative order, becoming a puzzle that unfolds along with the lyrics.  I will now embed the YouTube video. As you can see, since it's my blog, my readers probably wouldn't just care if I posted "My Favorite Coldplay" song, and didn't write about it. After all, they could just go to YouTube if they just wanted to watch the video. Remember, it's your writing, thoughts, and ideas, that matter.

Also, you want to leave your reader with a question, or invitation to comment. Commenting on other's blogs, and replying to the comment on yours, is a way to generate a "loyal" following of readers.

So, what do you think about the way the video told the story of the song? What happened in the video, if you were telling the story in normal sequential order?

-Mr. Myers

Help Mr. Myers Fix His Blog!

Well, in case you have not noticed, Mr. Myers has not updated his blog since December, yikes, December! Well, there's a reason for that, other than laziness, the main one being, I'm not really sure what my blog should be about.

My blog is called "21st Century Writer" and will therefore be related to my role both as a writer, and as a teacher of writing. So while my blog tries to figure out what it wants to be when it grows up, perhaps you, my readers, can help out. Should the 21st Century Writer blog be a personal one, where I share my personal writing and digital media creations. Another possiblitity is to turn the blog into a demonstration blog, where I provide walkthroughs and examples of "How To" create the content produced in my 21st Century Writing, Digital Media, and English Language Arts classes. A third possiblity is for my blog to be a showcase for the brilliant, creative work produced by my amazing fellow Writers for Life in all my classes. Finally, my blog could be a blog for teachers, on how to create an environment in their classes similar to the one that led to building and nurturing the W4L community.

As you can see from the content of this blog, I have tried all these approaches since launching my blog two years ago. However, I would like my blog to have an actual purpose, so I'm asking you, my reader, to help determine just what my blog should be about; so please scroll down to the bottom of this page, vote in my poll, and help Mr. Myers fix his blog!

-Daryl Myers