Day 1 - My 30 Day Blogging Challenge

I'm not new to blogging, but I love any excuse to blog more and to get others blogging. So, when I saw Jesssica Johnston (@edtechchic) share Reflective Teaching's post on 30-day blogging challenge for teachers, I thought "why not?!" However, I'd like to use this to challenge not only teachers, but students to get to blogging in a positive manner.

As a former English teacher, I can recall students submitting Works Cited pages to me, citing various blogs that they had not evaluated for accuracy and legitimacy. I would return it to them and ask them to evaluate the source. In doing so, though, I think we also generalize blogs as a "one-man's rant" page rather than what they can be - a chance to give authorship to many and to inflict change. So, when I saw this post, I thought this would be a great way to get teachers comfortable with blogging and, in turn, get students blogging in a positive manner.

So, here it goes - Day 1:

Write your goals for the school year & be as specific as you can!

1. Focus on the small steps: the day-to-day actions that make change
2. Remember that there are many stages of success: stage 1 is not necessarily bad; it's staying on stage 1 without a desire to move up that is a problem.
3. Don't overwhelm with too much excitement: contain your tendency to show too much and show just enough to get them talking.
4. Focus on the students: in my position, I don't get to directly teach them every day so we lose focus of what matters - students' learning.
5. Process over Product: as much as I love Google, we often sell it as a tool rather than for what's its uses are: collaboration, communication, creativity, critical thinking.

Stay tuned for the next 29!