Reflective Blogging - Can it inspire other educators
Social Media, blogging, and putting myself "out there" on the internet has never been a thing I wanted to entertain. I'm having to embrace it because of the grad class I am currently taking and I must admit, I have learned so much about leaders in the education community who reach out via social media to continually teach everyone, and anyone who are willing to read and learn.
I recently read a blog by Cale Birk, entitled "The Learning Nation" ( http://thelearningnation.blogspot.com/). For someone like me, who is not familiar with reading blogs, and knowing the forum and wordage used, I must say, I have read over a dozen in the past two weeks and found this one to be entertaining, yet educational.
Birk covers all realms of challenges faced by an educational leader; from the first day of school to the challenges faced by administrators who must address the ongoing needs throughout the school year, without the necessary budget. For example, in his post "Cracking the C.O.D.E of Teacher Learning", Birk highlights the importance of preparation and planning for the implementation of new initiatives. "Before we jump headlong into 'the next big thing', we need to have a laser-like focus on the actual impact that the initiative has on student learning and the type of learning that educators will need in order to help them effectively implement the initiative" (Birk, 2016). This is a fundamental aspect for new initiative implementation that I feel is missing from my school district. When I think back over the years, I recall many 'so called' new initiatives that have come and gone without ever having made any significant differences to instruction and learning.
Birk covers a variety of topics which impact education and uses a number of different writing styles to organize his posts. For example, the use of questions and answers break up some posts and allows the reader to gain a clear understanding of his thoughts. Along the side of his Blog page, he makes his other topics and posts easily accessible. Birk also uses diagrams and other visual aids to relay his message.
Educational and reflective blogging is an excellent resource for teachers and administrators to share ideas and reflect on the successes and failures of the education system. When administrators are able to communicate across the country and the world it provides a powerful platform for sharing ideas and teaching each other. Teachers and administrators should never stop learning because education never stops evolving. Well written blogs provides an open forum to continue to learn from each other. "Blogging is a common medium with which to discover best practice, examples of innovation, and professional experiences of both novice and veteran educators" (Sheninger, 2014).
References
I recently read a blog by Cale Birk, entitled "The Learning Nation" ( http://thelearningnation.blogspot.com/). For someone like me, who is not familiar with reading blogs, and knowing the forum and wordage used, I must say, I have read over a dozen in the past two weeks and found this one to be entertaining, yet educational.
Birk covers all realms of challenges faced by an educational leader; from the first day of school to the challenges faced by administrators who must address the ongoing needs throughout the school year, without the necessary budget. For example, in his post "Cracking the C.O.D.E of Teacher Learning", Birk highlights the importance of preparation and planning for the implementation of new initiatives. "Before we jump headlong into 'the next big thing', we need to have a laser-like focus on the actual impact that the initiative has on student learning and the type of learning that educators will need in order to help them effectively implement the initiative" (Birk, 2016). This is a fundamental aspect for new initiative implementation that I feel is missing from my school district. When I think back over the years, I recall many 'so called' new initiatives that have come and gone without ever having made any significant differences to instruction and learning.
Birk covers a variety of topics which impact education and uses a number of different writing styles to organize his posts. For example, the use of questions and answers break up some posts and allows the reader to gain a clear understanding of his thoughts. Along the side of his Blog page, he makes his other topics and posts easily accessible. Birk also uses diagrams and other visual aids to relay his message.
Educational and reflective blogging is an excellent resource for teachers and administrators to share ideas and reflect on the successes and failures of the education system. When administrators are able to communicate across the country and the world it provides a powerful platform for sharing ideas and teaching each other. Teachers and administrators should never stop learning because education never stops evolving. Well written blogs provides an open forum to continue to learn from each other. "Blogging is a common medium with which to discover best practice, examples of innovation, and professional experiences of both novice and veteran educators" (Sheninger, 2014).
References
Birk, C. (2016, August 24). Cracking the C.O.D.E
of Teacher Learning. Retrieved September 12, 2018, from The Learning
Natiion: http://thelearningnation.blogspot.com/
Sheninger, E. (2014). Digital Leadership Changing
Paradigms for Changing Times. Thousand Oaks: Corwin.
Ann-Marie,
ReplyDeleteI felt the exact same way you did regarding educational blogging. I was not comfortable with the idea, and never had any intentions of participating in it prior to this class. I also found that some blogs were more successful than others at keeping the page informative and entertaining. It seems to be a difficult balance, and when one of the two aspects are missing, I zone directly out. As a future leader, it is important to work on enhancing our own skills so that we can someday successfully balance it and use the internet to our advantage.
Ann-Marie,
ReplyDeleteI also felt the same way about blogging. A couple of years of ago a good friend, who is a blogger, encouraged me to start a blog. She walked me through the steps of setting up the blog and we even discussed topics that I could post. I think I made one or two posts and never looked at it again. I think at the time I didn't feel that I had anything valuable to blog about or felt the platform was too difficult to navigate. After reviewing and reading many blogs for this class, I feel a little more at ease with blogging and have jotted down some topics to post. Maybe I will take a stab at it again when I find the time. I also read Birk's blog and found it very interesting and engaging.