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Children's Mental Health Ontario
International Edubloggers Directory
The Learning Disabilities Association of Canada
Sep
19
I’m always asking my students to reflect upon different aspects of their lives by writing a journal. I ask them to reflect on things like the goals they have set for themselves, their assigments they do for me or other teachers, their report card marks, the most surprizing shopping trip etc. Although many of my students do not generally like writing, they like writing the brief five minute reflections I ask them to do at the beginning of class. I think it’s important to reflect upon what we do in life. By reflecting upon what we do, we can decide if what we are doing is giving us the desired result. If what we’re are doing isn’t giving us what we want, then we need to change what we are doing. I’m forever telling my students that better choices will lead to better outcomes.
Sometimes when you do something , you really have no idea what the outcome will be. What I mean is that usually when you start to do something you have an outcome in mind, but there are all kinds of other surprising things happen that you never expected or dreamed of . That’s what happened to me. I started writing this blog because I wanted to share with others what I ‘ve learned about teaching. My goal was to write some thing that some people would find useful. that was it!
That did happen. I’ve gotten feedback from all kinds of people to that effect and I’m really pleased about that. But all kinds of other unexpected things happened - positive things. Here’s a list of some of them:
-Teachers At Risk is read in over 80 countries
-I’ve met some wonderful people from all over the globe through my blog
-I’ve written over 175 posts in a little over a year and haven’t run out of things to say 
-Akismet has blocked 11,844 spam comments
-I’ve had a wonderfully positive review by David Synder of ASCD
-A book publisher purchased two of the articles that I wrote for my blog
- A large school board in the US asked if they could reproduce one of my posts Nine things that my students taught me about classroom management and teaching and distribute it to their new teachers
- I’ve started to podcast as well as blog and am listed in Itunes where people can subscribe to Teachers At Risk
- The opening of one of my podcasts was used as an exemplar at an international conference on podcasting
Honestly, it just blows me away. Who knew what the outcome from taking that first step back in August of 2006 would be. I certainly didn’t. I just wanted to pay it forward and mentor other teachers. I encourage all of you to try something new and see what happens. Take a risk. You just never know.
I’d love to hear other people’s experiences about something they did and the unexpected consequences that happened. If you have time, please share your experience with us.
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4 Responses to “The unexpected consequences of writing a blog”
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Elona,
These are fantastic unexpected outcomes! You definitely deserve a pat on the back.
I love connecting with teachers from around the world also. They have taught me so much that I would still be oblivious to if I had never reached out in the edublogosphere. Technology really is wonderful.
Ms. Whatsit,
Thanks so much for the encouragement. I too just love the way our blogs can build communities where we can share and learn. The communities also include non teachers which is great. It will be interesting to see what the future brings.
Elona,
I am actually taking a risk, as you suggested, by participating in a blog. That is very funny, since I came into education four years ago, after spending twelve years as a corporate trainer for a software development company! Blogging, one would think, would be a past time of mine.
I am currently pursuing a master’s of education, and blogging is an assignment in my first course. This week’s topic is on what makes an expert teacher from a novice one. In one article I am recently read, it stated in order to help develop the expert teacher, one goal must be to “develop teachers’ capacity to collaboratively reinvent instruction in their schools by working together.” (Garmston, 1998)
I decided to begin reading different posts before blogging. Yours caught my eye because one of your outcomes mentioned was meeting so many people from around the world and collaborating with them.
I love working with my colleagues to better my own teaching instruction and strategies, and to offer ideas to help them improve their own. However, I have enjoyed my on-line experience, as it gives me other perspectives from outside my school and outside my district.
I am looking forward to reading more from you and others and finding more strategies to become an “expert” teacher! Thanks for taking the risk and making teaching a better place for everyone!
Gigi
Resources:
Garmston, R.J. (1998). Becoming expert teachers(Part one). Journal of Staff Development, 19(1).
I, too, am pursuing my master’s degree in education and have visited this blog as part of an assignment.
Before today, I had never visited a blog. I am fascinated with all of the information shared by educators from around the globe on these blogs. I had no idea how powerful this means of communication could be. This experience has most definitely provided me with an unexpected vital resource in my pursuit of becoming a teaching professional.