Teacher Blogging Challenge #2--Five effective blog post ideas

1. Reflect on your teaching--Very few teachers take the time to do this and I have found that posting a reflection about my teaching in writing on my blog is a good thing. I can go back and read them and see what I tried and what did and didn’t work. It also helps me model for my Pre-Service and Graduate Education students who have to do reflection papers for course work. Here is an example of a reflection on my blog.

2. Tell a story--Really any story will do. One about something funny your students did or said is always good. Or tell a story on yourself--you know the kind where you, being the “technology” person or “teacher”, try something new and it doesn’t work at all or turns out completely differently than you expected. Personal stories about everyday life are also good blog fodder. Here is one by a friend of mine that is quite interesting! Make it a good read and you will get return readers and comments!

3. Share an idea or a link or a great web site--yes, even those crazy, middle of the night ideas work just fine on a blog as do those cool sites you are just bursting at the seams to share. I find that it helps me to see my ideas written out and then ask folks to read about it and see if it makes sense to them like it did to me in my head. Sharing links and great web sites is also a wonderful way to create good blog posts. One of the best people I know at doing this is Larry Ferlazzo. His blog is full 0f interesting web sites about a million different things.

4. Rant--only do this occasionally and let your readers know right up front it is a rant. Then they can choose to read it or not. I often do this about education policies that I disagree with or anything that I disagree with or wonder about how things could be different. This example is from another blogger who challenged his readers to list what was wrong with the educational blogosphere.

5. Just write--Don’t we tell our students that they will get better at school, baseball, the piano, etc., mostly by doing it over and over? So committing to writing posts whether short or long, mind blowing or somewhat ordinary, masterful writing or more basic reporting, is one way to write better posts. Just DO it! Here are a few of mine that I am proud of--Small Moment, My Life as a Reader, My K-12 Online Conference Experience.