Written by Once you post something, it is out there forever. The fear I have about pushing that publish button is overwhelming, particularly when posting my own teaching pedagogy. What if I cannot articulate my thinking and sound like I have no idea what I am doing in the classroom? What if I talk in circles and say nothing? What if I use all the right lingo and it sounds like I read it off the back of a cereal box?
I never wrote a diary as a child. I was always ripping pages out and rewriting because I didn’t like what I had written: it was all so mundane. I didn’t really have anything exciting to write about. If it was exciting, I took pictures to capture the moment. As they say, a picture says a thousand words!
Today, I am an Instagram junkie. So much can be captured in a photo with a short comment underneath. With my parents living out of the city these past few years, it is a way for me to let them know the weekly goings on of my family.
I am hoping to create a picture of my learning over this year using the mighty laptop. Hopefully my blogging will not bore too many readers, and that my words will illustrate my progress…no matter how slow that progress might be!
OK. Big step now. Press that button…..YIKES!
@gmatthews I felt the same way… and I still haven’t tweeted the link to my blog because pressing the Tweet button is scary! But, seeing your post has inspired me to do it.
If you find it easier to write when photos are involved, I bet you could add photos to your blog and write about them. I think that’d be an awesome way to reflect on your teaching/learning. Plus, from what I can tell, there doesn’t seem to be many rules in the blogging world*
*I am a totally newbie, don’t take my word for it 😉
Yay!! Congrats on getting your first post out there! If you don’t like the idea of writing about your teaching, it would be great to see images from your classroom (student work, displays, etc.) with some brief captions. Maybe that would be an easier place to start? Just an idea!
Congratulations on overcoming the fear and hitting publish! It’s interesting how much simpler it seems to be to publish a picture with a short caption, isn’t it? The Facebook status update seems to have gone the way of the dodo, with videos and images and sharing of links taking its place. It can be hard to sit down and think of something earth-shattering to write about (though it doesn’t have to be earth-shattering, and most often it won’t be!), and I too am often worried that nobody will be interested in my thoughts on my blog. However, I remind myself that the blog is to facilitate my own reflection more than anything else. I wonder if you could use some photos as a starting point for your reflections? Good luck, and I look forward to reading more of your thoughts this year!
Jen
Hi @gmatthews!
Thank you for sharing your thoughts about blogging. I have one question for you: How Might You make your blog more like Instagram? What if you used your blog to share images, rather than words? Everyone communicates differently, and you should use your strengths!
Looking forward to seeing you on Friday!
Les
Great question! I am going to start thinking Instagram when I post to my blog.
Gillian