Educational Blogging: the Value of Multiple Perspectives

White table with laptop, camera, photos, 
and coffee mug as someone types on the laptop.

  Educational blogging is an online platform used by teachers, students, and even sometimes parents as a means to share ideas a create community around a common interest, in this case some topic related to a desired or required education. Blogs allow communities to create social networks that facilitate the spreading of news, ideas, and work. Blogs geared more towards education provide teachers with platforms to share teaching strategies, methods, and also very valuable support or validation for struggling teachers. Educational blogs really are a community where teachers share their kindness, things that they have learned, and materials that can be helpful. With educational blogs that are high functioning and prolific, they can have an abundance of materials and valuable seasoned experience in them. 

In this class I have had the privilege of looking at a number of blogs from my classmates in different educational disciplines. However, one thing we all had in common is that we were using this platform to share our thoughts and experiences on different topics in education. There were many articles like Jake Lee’s on the ways poverty and class-sizes effect student learning. His blogs specifically reinforced many ideas I was aware of; however they provided some really key informative qualities. Some blogs, like Sarah Carmichael’s, shared the same interests as I do with a focus on ESL students, but brought in new perspectives on phenomenons like assimilation that are not mentioned enough in educational discourse. Another amazing thing about these blogs is that I will not agree with all of them just like many will not agree with mine. I wrote all three of my first posts on charters schools and was excited to see someone take up that topic as well. Although Peyton King’s feelings on charter schools varied from mine it was interesting to see how they felt that charter schools might be a good thing in ways that I had not. The blogs from my peers have been an invaluable resource into understanding and seeing the incoming teaching force.

Although I have not been blogging for long, I can see the value and benefits in it. I think that blogs are a great outlet for veteran teachers to share the knowledge that they have gained on their journeys in the school system. I do not really see myself blogging my experience as a starting teacher until I think I have a better grasp on the best practices in the classroom and more helpful tips I feel like I could share. I think a blog geared more towards my classroom could be fun as a way to create a strong classroom community, but that would be something I would need to test out more.