I recently sent out a document asking for some editing help on a letter I want to send out to teachers at my school. I am a firm believer that teachers will never use new tools or try new methods of teaching, until they have a firm understanding of the tools and methods on a personal level. In short, if you want a class full of bloggers, you need a blogger to sell it to them. A teacher mandated to “use” technology will never convince a class of students to blog.
To remedy this situation, I have decided to gather five to ten teachers from my school and walk them through the blogging process. From there we will move wherever their interests takes us, but I will guide them toward Twitter and building their own learning networks. I will encourage them to blog about whatever excites them, whether that is pedagogy or knitting. I just want to see teachers modeling good writing practice and taking charge of their digital identities.
Here is where you come in: Blog Alliance! How about you do the same thing? In a few weeks we will join our fledgling bloggers. As they become more comfortable we will help them find a supportive and critical audience. In a few months time, we will hopefully have some new blood in the network as well as a team of teachers ready to move our respective schools forward.
If you are interested please leave a comment with your details. Let me know if I forgot anything or other suggestions. I plan to send this letter (Edit it, use it, share it) out this week. My school is off for a week’s holiday but I would like to start before November.
Credit where credit is due, Clint Hamada coined the term Blog Alliance, but I am pretty sure it is under Creative Commons license. CC another lesson for the Blog Alliance!
Please join us on the wiki to offer any advice or guidance you feel will be useful.
Me! What details do you need? Reading and Study Skills Instructor and Faculty Advisor, Century College, White Bear Lake, Minnesota, USA.
Credit where credit is due, I borrowed it from somewhere else (but can’t remember where!).
Your tweet got me thinking, I bet I could round up a few people who are interested in blogging too. If we went through the stages of blog development at roughly the same time, my fledgling bloggers and your fledgling bloggers could read and comment on one another’s writing. Automatic authentic audience!
I can think of a few other schools where we might be able to get some small cohorts of new bloggers as well. Four or five countries, 20 to 30 new bloggers all learning from and with one another. I think we can manage that!
I’m in too. I will see if I can get some of my colleagues interested.
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I am interested in finding out how it turns. I hope you have many teachers do this, because I agree they need to learn some new ways of teaching the information to student and keep them interested in that subject.
Of course, the blog alliance can count me in! My blog is http://tsbray.posterous.com. Thanks!
I’ll see what I can do but will have to wait until after our Oct. break so my bloggers to-be (if I get any) probably won’t start until November-ish.
I am a fledging blogger myself and likely the only one at my school. I would like to tag along, learn and reap the benefits of the collective blogging wisdom out there. I’ll send a shout out to my colleagues here at school and see what comes of it. I may be a cohort of one…
I’m always ready to support the Alliance. We must defeat the (Status Quo) Empire!
My blogs:
http://www.teachwithvideo.com/blog
http://stevenkatz.com – I’m using this as a portfolio/resource.
Ok Now that means you all need to find 5 new bloggers and be ready to move them forward in the process. This takes time and dedication. Let me us know when you know your numbers and start date.
Once we have all the groups identified and online, we will work toward introducing them to each other via their blogs. I will create a wiki soon where we can store and share resources.
I am in! I have devised a yearly ongoing PD plan for the teachers at school to integrate more technology in their classes. However beacuse of other things ere and there I ahven’t been able to start it off since I was planning in using some time f the weekly staff meetings for this…
I so agree with your first paragraph! 🙂
I am interested I might be able to get a few on board here too! What a great thing to show our kid evidence that we are learners too!
Melinda Shanghai China
I’m definitely interested. I will be holding a blogging workshop for teachers in the next month and would love to link their blogs to yours.
Will keep you in the loop.
I’ll try and get some teachers at my school on board. So far I know of at least 3 of us who are blogging, shouldn’t be too hard to get a couple of more interested in it.
I think it’s a great idea, but I wonder if any of the teachers at my school would be interested… I’d like to give it a try!
Made this for students, but with a little creative cut-and-pasting it could easily be revamped to share with teachers:
http://mrtruss.edublogs.org/2010/09/05/welcome-to-edublogs/
Use and abuse (with no credit necessary)
Dave:-)
ps. I think 2 of the 3 teachers I’ve got going with student blogs might actually blog themselves… I’m working on it!
Don’t forget us – the M.A. Blog Alliance! Leslie and I are in, too… but it’s a bit of an off-shoot…
Hi everyone,
Wiki is now up- http://blogalliance.wikispaces.com/ so please join us there to continue the planning and conversations.
Would you consider mentoring long distance? I would like to pass on the information to teacher education students.
Wow this is a great resource.. I’m enjoying it.. good article