I still find it hard to believe that it has been a complete year since I started writing this blog. One year ago I was completely oblivious to the whole idea of blogging and the purpose of it. Now, I spend some of my time trying to explain blogging to other educators. My blog serves a different purpose than the teachers that I work with who might start a blog, but the concepts of communicating, interacting, and growing as an educator as still the same.
I started this blog with a single goal of just sharing resources. It turns out that this blog has become much more of a communication tool and small piece of my professional growth as an educator. I found myself reading more as it relates to education and reform, educational technology, and the different subject matters. Writing this blog has allowed me to become more aware of the different subject matter that our students learn. Before writing this blog, my knowledge was very Social Studies specific.
Through this blog I have met some great people and been able to connect with educators from around the world. I am able to look and see where people who visit my blog are from and it amazes me how much that spans the globe. Our problems, solutions, techniques, lessons, curriculum, and student personalities when it comes to education are not unique to America, and through this blog and Twitter I have been able to have a MUCH better understanding of that.
I want to share what I consider to be the top 15 post for the year for The Pursuit of Technology Integration Happiness. What you will notice is that several of the post deal less with educational technology, but more with professional growth and professional networking.
1.) Cartoons and Comic Creation
2.) Blogs You Should Focus Your Attention On
3.) Do You Tweet? As an Educator...You Should!
4.) The Power of T.W.I.T.T.E.R.
5.) Obama 2010 State of the Union Address Wordle
6.) Twitter Tweecap from 2nd Week of March, 2010
7.) 100th Post - Growth of My PLN
8.) My Best...No Most Influential Teacher
9.) Doing a FLIP Across the Curriculum
10.) 7 Technology Alternatives to the Standard Homework Assignments
11.) Google Earth Help
12.) 8 Common Misconceptions of Technology Integration in Education Recap
13.) Tools for the 21st Century Teacher
14.) Skype Resources
15.) 10 Ways to Use iTunes/Podcast in the Classroom
Are you a blogger? How has blogging helped you become a better educator? Want to share that experience and be a Guest Blogger? Contact me on Twitter and let me know. Help me show teachers how blogging can be a professional and life changing experience.
Do you have students who blog? I would like to see and share how blogging has changed their outlook on education and learning.
I have my high school students blog using classblogmeister.com. It is a nice tool in my district, as students aren't allowed to create/publish content that is unmonitored (such as a blogspot blog).
ReplyDeleteI was just recalled into the district I was laid off from, and re fired up the blog w/ my current drawing students--though we are just starting. The link: http://classblogmeister.com/blog.php?blogger_id=201573
My photography classes last year streamlined into blogging quite well, and if you check in the "Discovery Photography" classes from spring 2010, you'll see that some students were really successful. Like Diep's: http://classblogmeister.com/blog.php?user_id=201573&blogger_id=303486 or Michelle's http://classblogmeister.com/blog.php?user_id=201573&blogger_id=303484 out of my 6th hour class.
Works great in the fine arts as an online portfolio, and a good introduction to blogging.