5 Reasons For Educators To Embrace Blogging


The internet is an amorphous blob of personal space and public domain.  Few things can be said to embody both concepts.  Upon the internet becoming the internet, conceptual understanding progressed at a snail’s pace because people were asking what the internet can do before asking what the internet was.  The same thing is happening to the blogosphere.  To steal a concept from Mark O’Donnell: people are asking what blogs can do before asking what blogs really are.

In my opinion, the two ideas, what blogs are and what blogs can do, are inseparable because embedded in the identity of blogging is what it allows you to do.  As an anology: what I do is teach, I consider my identity- what I am- a teacher.  I am what I do.

Blogs are what they allow people to do.  

The following 5 benefits refer to professional articles as a result of blogging rather than a rambling personal diary reminiscent of a Bret Easton Ellis publication- but blogs are also blogs because they allow for this as well…
 
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The Best Advice I've Ever Received From A New Teacher

" Well, I did it!" Ms. Sims exclaimed.  She was referring to her first year as an educator and we were sitting down for the end of the year mentor-mentee meeting.  We met a frustrated Ms. Sims a couple months ago.

"  I realized that there is SO MUCH STUFF... in teaching... there is so much to do, to remember, and I realized that I couldn't do it all.  I found myself cutting back and learning everything separately."
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She was truly exuberant.  I was happy for her, I wasn't sure that she would make it.

"Can you give me an example- a cutting back and learn everything separately example?" I questioned.

"I wanted to be the best teacher in the school from day one, and put everything into practice that I learned from school and student teaching.  I quickly found that to be impossible."

Ms. Sims reached into her bag and pulled out her plan book.


The Fab New COI Model Of Learning

I’ve been on a theory binge lately.  It began several weeks ago when I re-read Pragmatism by William James—what a gem.  Very few ideas are as applicable as pedagogy that is pragmatic.  I thought that I was a pragmatic teacher by nature- hence the title for this website.  Until I came across a relatively new model called the Community of Inquiry (COI).

Theory junkies hold on- this model is the real deal.

This article is about one facet of the COI model: teacher presence.  I have two goals.  First, describe teacher presence and how it has pragmatic origins.  Second, hold myself accountable for what I’ve read and hopefully learned regarding the COI model.