I am not gonna lie, I am feeling tired, a bit burnt out and lazy. It is Friday morning, I have a few preps to get some work done, but I am mostly caught up, so it is the perfect time to do a quick write up for the second meeting of our blogging club. The problem is I don’t really feel like doing it.

This is where modeling behavior you like to see comes in. One of the biggest questions I get from new teachers to blogging and interacting with the social web is, “Where do you find the time?” The answer is I don’t find the time. Time is not something that is found; it is made. It is shaped. Expanded and collapsed. It is used or misused. So while I could just relax and maybe surf the web, or perhaps work on my Areas of Interaction wall display, or finish up the work on my ESL oral assessments, I am choosing to take twenty minutes and quickly jot done a few ideas about our second session. Why? Because I believe in the value of routine and writing and reflection and blogging. Time is a choice, or better stated a series of choices.

While some may see the use of twenty minutes as a frivolous hobby, I see it as professional development. I see it as my chance to reflect on the work I do. This reflection and growth professionally and personally is one of the most important aspects of my life. I see it as time well spent, not wasted. We are all busy. Take a look at Dean Shareski’s thoughts on the subject of busyness, but we have a choice on how we use our time. So without further ado. A quick recap:

1. I came to the conclusion that perhaps many of the participants are not ready or willing, or need to commit to this level of involvement with their own reflection. They do not want to create a professional blog where they ponder the merits of online communication and community building. They simply want to learn how to use the tool to create a space that will help them connect with, and engage with their students and parent community. I also learned that this is okay. We cannot expect that everyone will find value in one model of blogging. The secret I think is to offer people exposure, show them the options and help guide them to where they want to go, not where we want to take them.

If our elementary school art teacher wants to create a platform to share student work with a wider audience, instead of writing about the process, that is totally okay. I need to find out where she is and help move her to where she wants to go. So many times technology enthusiasts want to show everyone everything at once, and are shocked that perhaps a teacher doesn’t want to follow.

2. I got a good sense of what everyone wants from their blogs and we began to discuss and explore design and platforms. Teachers are using Blogger and WordPress themes. I did some research to try and find the best tool for embedding slideshows on a Blogger account and feel I found some great choices to offer. The question for me, however, is how can I empower the teachers to find these options for themselves? How can we demonstrate to teachers that there is value in taking time to research solutions to the problems they face? How can we show them that struggling with technology is what learning looks like, and in the long run figuring out how to do something for yourself is not wasting time, but actually it is them learning?

I don’t want to take anymore of your time, but I am curious of what you think. If you are one of the teachers here at SWA, please leave a comment, and let’s see if we can carve out a conversation as we help build the tools you need. Take ten minutes and try to hash out your thoughts. They don’t have to be complete or perfect. This point cannot be better made than by reading over this post and highlighting the many typos and mistakes. A blog is a place to reflect and talk, not to write your opus.

I want to close by saying how great it is that you do make the time every week to join us and learn about something new. Thank you. Your time is valued and appreciated, because I know you could be doing a million other things.

Helping teachers get into blogging has been an enlightening experience so far. Yes, I know we have only had one session so far, but I have spent the greater part of the last seven years trying to find ways to “shift” teacher attitudes about the use of technology.

This post will not be some long polemic about my thoughts, and that is okay as I am trying to make a point. Blogging, while called publishing, need not always be so polished and perfected. One may have a thought or an idea that needs a bit more flushing out, an idea that may need more space than Twitter can provide, and so one can simply crank it out, get it on he web, and see who responds.

Blogging can be a great tool to simply work through your thoughts. First by sitting down and articulating exactly what you are trying to say and secondly through the instant feedback from your readers. So here is what I have been thinking about since Wednesday:

I have been very careful to meet teachers at their starting points. I am very aware that I could, by moving too quickly, push teachers out of their comfort zones and lose their interest. I am noticing that adults treat their learning with care and caution. They question it. They are timid at times and move quiet slowly. As a teacher working with them, I am very aware of their trepidation and try to acquiesce to their fears. This is good practice. This is starting from the learner and moving forward.

My question is how often do we do this with our students? How often do we sit back and think about the comfort levels of the diverse students in our classes. Are we worried that if we move too fast we could lose them, or are we trying to get through curriculum? Are we worried that some students maybe fearful and nervous of what they are being asked to do, or do we simply assume that all are eager learners?

Differentiated instruction has become a buzz word, and like all jargon has lost much of its meaning, but I think it is important to show the same level of care and attention to students that we pay when working with teachers. Furthermore, why is it that some teachers are so cautious when it comes to learning new things? Is this hesitation a characteristic of life long learning? What do you think?

By the way this post took me nine minutes to write.

We held our first Blogging Club for teachers at my school yesterday and I would say that it was a resounding success. Of course I would say that because I am facilitating the group, but seriously it was great to see so many enthusiastic, open-minded teachers eager to learn about something new.

If you are one of the teachers who was there yesterday, and you are reading this post, welcome! Reading blogs is one of the first steps to entering the conversation and moving forward on your journey. In the spirit of reflective learning, I want to use this post and the subsequent ones I write about this process to be a place where I reflect on the process of working with teachers who want to use more technology. I am a firm believer that we learn best, when we can articulate our style, our successes, and most importantly our failures. I also want to use this series of posts to document what we are doing as a means to share the journey with other teachers, at other schools who may be interested in a similar project.

What we did:

In an effort to use as many useful tools as we can, beyond just blogs, I created a Google Doc as a place to take collective notes on our meeting. I am finding that Google Docs are a great tool for constructing meaning by its users. I could have easily passed out or shared the answers to some of the questions we discussed on a hand out or powerpoint, but I feel it is important to have stakeholders gather their thoughts and ideas and collaborate to come up with a shared response.

I created an outline on the document and encouraged participants to take notes as we talked. This was a bit new and unusual for some, and it was natural to want to read what was happening on the document. I think after a while it will get easier.

Here is some of what was there:

Why did you sign up for this blogging project?What are you hoping to get out of it?

• A renewed interest in blogging
• Have difficulties sometimes trying to figure out what to write about.
• never blogged before – want to learn/experiment!
• To develop a class blog and perhaps a professional blog
• To have a space for discussion points that are generated in class but because of time-constraints we cannot fully develop them.
• Community
• Communication
• who is the audience?

Two words on this list make me very happy: Community and Communication. We are on the right track!

Here was the agenda:

• Have a general conversation about why people blog.
• Different types of blogs: class, personal, professional.
• Different blogging platforms
• Start a blog
• Talk about design and features

It was great to see how these initial questions raised much bigger and more philosophical questions. I didn’t want to start with such a big scope, but it was encouraging to see the interest. Some of the major raised questions were about:

• Time constraints
• Safety
• Online Identity
• Publishing something while your learning (Things not being perfect)

There were other concerns, but these were the few that come to mind. I do not want to address these issues in this post, but rather hope that we can tackle each one in the coming weeks.

I think one mistake I made was that I only used my blogs and general way of doing things as examples, and people may have been a bit shocked by the amount of time I spend on my online presence. I want to ensure teachers who are in our group that I may be a bit of an anomaly. There is no expectation for teachers to have four blogs and spend a few hours a night posting to your blogs. Each individual will find a comfort zone and work from there. So please do not think that we are all trying to race to some kind of blogging ideal. We are here to start where you as an individual teacher feel comfortable and slowly move at your pace till you feel confident to move forward.

Interesting to see how much more cautious and nervous teachers can be about learning than their students. As teachers we tend to be more dubious and want to move very slowly and cautiously while we learn, but then we expect our students to be enthusiastic learners who are always working at the class pace rather than their own. Something to keep in mind: Each learner starts in a different place and needs their own pace. Do we do that in our classrooms, or are we trying to get through curriculum?

Next week we will look at a variety of other blogs to a sense of the diversity in style and content. Here is a list you may want to start exploring before next week:

always learning
Intrepid Teacher
Tip of the Iceberg
Learning on the Job
Mr. C’s Class Blog
Everyone has to start somewhere
Beyond Digital
The History Ninja
Teach With Video
Mrs. Utility Player

We went on to discuss the different types of blogs that teachers could have: Class, Personal, and Professional. Based on this Google Doc Survey I sent out prior to the meeting it looks like we will have a variety of different blog styles within our group, which is fantastic.

In closing we spent some time looking at various platforms, mainly: Blogger, WordPress, Weebly, and Edublogs. The expectation is that teachers will have a clear idea of what sort of blog they want to start and which platform will be best for them. Next week, we will create blogs and begin looking, I mean writing about, what we learn.

I am thinking about proposing that no matter what kind of blog teachers create, they also create a reflective blog for the purpose of this club. So they/you too can have a place to write about the various videos we will watch, the posts we will read, and the conversations we will have.

What do you think teachers? How is it going so far? Don’t be shy leave a comment and let the conversations begin. For those of you wondering about time, this post took me 17 minutes to write, 10 minutes to edit. Please do not judge lest there be typos or grammatical faux pas. (Spelling?)

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.