My Blogging Story… #EdublogsClub

So I thought I would try my hand at blogging… sharing ideas, thoughts, and maybe a little whimsy. We’ll see how it goes.

Those were the first lines of blogging text posted to the second iteration of this blog back in April of 2012. Now, nearly five years and over 120 posts later I’m still looking for ways to increase/improve my blogging. That’s where #EdublogsClub comes in!

What is the #EdublogsClub?

This is a creation of Ronnie Burt, where once you’ve signed up, each Tuesday you will have a prompt emailed to you. These prompts will be on a specific topic with enough flexability to post what works for you. Once you post, you then comment on that week’s blog post for the #EdublogsClub w/ the link to yours. You can also share via the social network(s) of your using. You can read what others have posted, and potentially leave comments growing your personal learning network.

Try things that fit what you need…

That last part is what speaks to me. See when I started blogging (the first iteration, pre-2012) the blog was a means for communicating what was happening in my classroom. I taught fourth grade and each week a different student had the ‘job’ of posting to our classroom blog. This took the task of sending out a weekly bulletin to my students’ parents out of my hands and placed the responsibility into my students’ hands. Then my career took a different path, I was no longer a classroom teacher and I became a technology coach for teachers. What to do with my blog???

A new path!

I transitioned to more of a reflection, recommendation, and retelling of my tech experiences. I wanted a place where others could learn about what I have shown teachers and hopefully it will be a virtual help to them. I also wanted to hear/learn from those who read my posts. But unfortunately that hasn’t been the case. Maybe its because I don’t have many who follow/read my blog, maybe the posts don’t speak to them. I try to make it a point to end each of my posts these last couple years with a question to spark comments, but only on a couple of occasions have dialogues sprouted. I hope that this will change with the #EdublogsClub.

A long time ago, yada, yada, yada…

A couple of years ago, I did get the opportunity to hear from someone, Rafranz Davis, whom I had the pleasure of meeting in person at a SMART Global Summit, who encouraged me to continue blogging. When we met face to face she informed me that she enjoyed reading my recommendations but hadn’t recalled one for quite some time. She wished I would post more (at the time, it was exactly what I needed to hear).

Sometimes you don’t know the impact you have on others.

See, I can look on the dashboard at the number of subscribers (11, thank you to each of you who subscribe) but that doesn’t reflect the true reach of your posts (this would be the advice or rather the tip to remember for those starting out). I have a ‘gadget’ setup to automatically tweet when I publish a new post, anyone who reads the blog from that link are unknown to me. Also, I use a service, Feedly, to curate all the blogs I follow; I have no way of knowing how many readers use something similar and have this blog as a favorite. Keep blogging, even if you don’t believe someone is reading, because you never know who is or will be reading. I have on several occasions returned to past posts to recall what I did to setup a workflow or try to remember a tool I recommended a ways back which might help one of my teachers now.

Will you be taking the #EdublogsClub challenge and post this year? I would love to read about it and click your links in the comments below.

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