‘A place to share thoughts, ideas, grabs and notes, as well as and anything else that strikes me as worthy of an ‘e–memory’ along with a title and tags. The scope is broad, though the focus is on e-Learning – its potential and problems.’

I gave this title and description to my Open University Student Blog in February 2010. To deny the value of reflection would be to deny its contents.

Which I estimate runs to over 50,000 words.

Most of this I liken to training for a Triathlon. It simply documents the swimming, cycling and running required.

The big test ought to be a written exam. The big test might be a job interview.

Who knows. Some habits are hard to break. I was given a typewriter when I was 13 and a diary to write in when I was 14. I’ve catalogued events in my life since I was four; I’m nearly through with my forties.

Much of it is descriptive, much of it is reflective. I am its author and generally its sole reader. The blog or diary that makes good reading is the exception to the rule.

Does stopping life to reflect on it help?

Does generating more choices improve a situation?

Must we conform?

Perhaps had I got to university and found keeping a diary and sharing parts of it with others was a requirement I would have promptly stopped.

Exposure can be interesting. Navel gazing is dull. Reflection set within tight parameters is even more dull.

But dullness isn’t the criteria to judge its worth in this context, is it?

I’m an atheist who would choose Catholicism over other religions as I fancy the confessional.

Blogs spill over into confessional.

There is the constant risk of exposing too much. Of putting into a permanent record what you might only share and develop with a psychologist.

If its one thing we humans are brilliant at doing, computer aided when it comes to an online existence, it is exploiting others for private gain.