Blog Reflection

 Blogging is a great tool to stay current with topics going on in education.  I was able to reflect on my own thinking and teaching based on current events occurring in education throughout the country.  I was able to share my thoughts and ideas about topics that I am passionate about and have other educators comment on my thoughts.  Some of those comments allowed for me to reflect on my thoughts and some challenged me to rethink my opinion.  I enjoyed blogging because I was able to research topics that I was interested in such as looping with students and school violence.  I was able to gather facts about these topics where I felt more educated and informed to be able to express my thoughts and have evidence to support my opinion.  I believe that this experience challenged me to remain relevant to current educational topics as I was reading many articles that had recently been published.  It also made me read more articles to fact check or gather more information about topics that I am interested in learning more about because I wanted to post information that was accurate and have my opinion be well researched and thought out.

I believe that blogging can bring educators together to improve the education system in the United States.  Similar to my experience with Twitter, blogging can be a way for teachers to share ideas to improve instruction and build a positive learning environment for students.  Teachers can share new strategies, online resources, and tools through blogging and discuss how they work to strengthen the learning process.  They can provide links, visuals, and personal experiences with each other to ask for feedback or share what they have learned.  It can be a great networking tool to bring educators together with the common goal of doing what is best for students.  


Blogging can be a way for educators to have courageous conversations about passionate and controversial topics.  If the original blog post is written in a way that people can share their opinions even when they don’t necessarily agree with the author, it can create a platform for deep thinking and reflecting.  It allows for people to share their full thoughts, unlike other online apps that limit the number of words or characters.  The author can pose questions about what they read and ask people who read their blogs what their perspectives are on topics.  Educators can respond to each other about their posts and share their own experiences that could be quite different from each other.  It is a way to bring strangers together through a common interest and share their thoughts and ideas in a respectful way, while still feeling safe to speak their truth.  


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