This Monday night at 8:00 CST
I have the pleasure of leading the #ksedchat Twitter chat. Our topic for the night will be teacher's blogging. Within the last year I have had more and more teachers approach me with that subject and want to know more. I figured the topic would be fitting.
I also thought it would be fitting to write a post about how it all started for me, and the changes that have taken place since then.
In the Beginning...
I didn't take a class on blogging. I didn't learn how to write a specific way to blog. I simply read blogs. My cousin, Casey, wrote a blog about her family. Stories here and there that allowed us to follow their lives and feel connected even though it would be months (sometimes years) that would pass before we would be able to get together.
I decided to do that too. I chose the exact same program that she used, Google's Blogger. It was free and relatively easy to setup.
After four years of blogging about my personal life, dating, to engaged, to married, and babies. I decided that this could be beneficial for the classroom.
So I added another blog. This time one about my classroom.
My Audience...
Initially I started my classroom blog as a way for me to reflect about my day, but also share with parents of our community what was happening in my classroom. That was it. I wasn't anticipating large numbers of readers, just parents and students of our area.
But as time went on, my audience started to shift. As more and more teachers started taking notice and commenting on posts about lessons or activities, my writing started to change a bit.
I was now writing for educators. I still shared the blog with parents, but the majority of my readers were other teachers. Today I am contacted by more teachers for materials and lessons and collaboration than I ever thought was possible. I love it. I love making connections with other educators, sharing resources and collaborating to make our classrooms better for kids.
Getting Started...
I am not an expert in blogging. I can't tell you step-by-step how to create a blog or what to write about. All I did was open up a free blog and started clicking.
I think many people I talk to are worried about that part. The technical stuff. How did you do all the backgrounds, fonts, colors, pictures, etc... I seriously just clicked buttons until I liked what I saw. If I saw something cool on someone else's blog that I wanted to try, I Googled it.
Monday Night at 8:00
Join us at #ksedchat to talk about teacher blogging. We'll look into the benefits and possible pitfalls to writing a blog, and share some resources or favorite blogs we like to read.
Resources:
If you're hoping to get step-by-step instructions on setting up a blog, I'm probably not the person you want to talk to. There are blogs out there just for stuff like that. Remember...I just started clicking around until I liked it. Never be afraid of clicking to learn. There's not much online now-a-days that can't be changed with a "delete" or "undo." You can also refer to these links for some set-up help and advice.
