Despite the fact that the initial excitement about blogs has
somewhat dissipated, I think they retain a massive amount of benefits, two of
which I would like to share.
The first is as an almost cathartic form of teacher
reflection. Many an expert on education has spoken of reflection as the single most
important thing a teacher can do to advance them forward in their profession. Whether
it’s reflecting in a journal, reflecting on the bus, or reflecting with others
in the teachers’ lounge, all will facilitate an educator moving forward in his
career. A blog is an ideal place to do this reflection. The notion that others
might look at your writing keeps you disciplined to keep posting and to be
professional, intelligent, and careful about the posts. Not to mention the fact
that others should be able to benefit from your insights as well!
The second benefit is the ability to bring the classroom to
the outside world. I recently started a blog (http://rabbijaffe.edublogs.org/) to further
classroom discussion for homework. That means that my students will potentially
reflect upon our subjects wherever they go. It’s taking our classroom and
putting it in the place they spend most of their time anyway: The computer.
Students will especially be cautious in writing well when they know that not
just their teacher, but their peers and anyone else who stumbles upon the blog
can read what they say. They’re truly out there in the world.
It will take me a long time to get over my only blog fear.
Several years back I maintained a blog regularly. I took it very seriously. Then
one day the site announced they were switching everything over to another
server. My password no longer worked and every email I sent was received only
by silence. Eventually my hundreds of posts disappeared forever. I’d love to
figure out how to appease that concern.
But for the reasons stated above, I will certainly try!
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