What’s your ‘why’?

What’s your WHY for blogging? Why blog as a teacher and learner?

I reached out to some critical friends who are in K-12 education to ask them what their ‘why’ is for their educational blogging practice. Here’s a few of their responses:

Yvonne, who works at UBC Faculty of Education, shared how blogging purpose can change over time.

image is a tweet

Aviva says: (link to Aviva’s tweet) and a link to two blog post written about this topic

  1. Why Do I Blog? (August, 2010).
  2. Why Do We Share As We Do? (Sept, 2020).

Laurie says: (link to Laurie’s tweet)

and a link to a blog post she wrote about this topic – Why I Write (October, 2016)

Jennifer says: (link to this tweet from Jennifer)

Sherri says: (link to this tweet from Sherri)

Verena says: (link to Verena’s tweet)

For my own reasons for blogging, I think back to this post titled Awaken the Dragon (2015, Jan) which I wrote as a renewed commitment to blogging, after dabbled for many years without having a firm ‘why’ for blogging as part of my educational practice. But it was this ME in MEdia (2015, April) post that really hooked me into becoming a blogger since the comments spurred further thinking and connections.

What is your WHY? add thoughts to an open Etherpad

Additional reasons for beginning or maintaining a blog for educational purposes could include:

  • Connect curriculum, context, children to wider worlds [e.g. Kids Guide to Canada https://akgtcanada.com/]
  • Build opportunities for authentic assessment (my UBC.ca blog site Authentic Assessment: A working chart)
  • Communicate information to parents and wider communities as this Cobble Hill Elementary School did during the pandemic
  • Plan and communicate lessons while teaching remotely [Learning Plan April 15-18th by teacher Sarah Adams] where parents could add comments to communicate to the teacher. Be sure to set up comment moderation when you do this so you don’t miss any of these communications.
  • Share class information and practices while using the blog feature to share weekly or monthly news [La Classe De Nathalie]
  • Showcase student learning – your blog site can be the curated repository of student learning over the course of a year or a blog hub for student blogs (if each student has their own blog site).
  • Share your passions or your background so parents and school community members can get to know you – as seen on the About Me page on La Classe De Nathalie (linked above) or the blog site titled Model the Learning by high school math educator Heather Theijsmeijer
  • Share your professional practice with other educators as modelled by Doug Peterson in his This Week in Ontario Edublogs – a weekly podcast where he showcases Ontario educational blog posts that amplifies educators’ voices.

As you begin, continue, or renew your commitment to blogging as part of your educational practice, carefully consider your ‘why’. This can be connected to your philosophy of teaching, as Yvonne Dawydiak models with this blog post [Philosophy].

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