Blogging a blog about blogging

The face to face sessions of Cohort 21 are great for sparking conversations, and fanning those sparks into open flames. This blog space is one of the tools for connecting educators as part of the Cohort 21, and at yesterday’s session there was much discussion of the how to make good use of the blog. I thought I would share some of my thoughts on why I started a blog, and what I got out of it.

I started Teach Science (.net) four years ago, for a number of reasons. I had ideas I wanted to share, I followed a number of science & education bloggers who I admired (and kind of wanted to emulate), and I kind of just wanted to give it a try. But probably the biggest reason was that I wanted to practice what I preached. My educational philosophy includes the ideas that participation in discussion is a way of self-assessing your own understanding, that failure is a necessary part of learning (in that it identifies the current boundary of knowledge), and that fear of failure should be overcome.  Starting a blog was a perfect opportunity to share in the discussion, test my own ideas, and face my own fear of failing or “looking stupid”. As part of this, I decided up front that I would never sensor myself. Anything I got “wrong” I would leave for the world to see (alongside a correction – hey, I don’t want to spread incorrect information!).

At first I tried to write posts like other bloggers, but quickly realized that it was my blog, my voice, and things would be written my way, for better or for worse. I also originally set myself a goal for how frequently I would post, but again abandoned that for the stress and guilt it induced.

Once I started, I also learned that it felt good to write out my thoughts and share them. And when you get a comment, or a retweet, or spark a discussion – well, there’s that little jolt of dopamine that makes you want to keep doing it. And lastly – though perhaps I shouldn’t mention this – it gave me something to do when I was in a procrastinating mood, but that still felt productive.

I hope this little reflection helps others along their blogging journey.