Towards the end of last year, I found myself sitting at my desk, staring at the piles of paper that I had accumulated. We had just found out that our district would be rolling out classroom sets of Chromebooks to teachers that were interested. I knew I wanted to make a change. I want my students to be more engaged. I want to work smarter, not harder. It was then that my idea of starting a blog was born.
My initial thought was to use it more as a public diary to keep myself accountable to exploring new ideas and reflecting upon how they worked. Since it would be about experiences in my classroom, I could wait to start it until school had started back up. But then the universe had other ideas... First, I began to notice other people around the district were starting up blogs. If they could do it, why not me too? Then, I was reading a book and the author cited an article, "Why Even the Worst Bloggers Are Making Us Smarter". Hmmm... So even if I am terrible at blogging it might prove helpful? A few hours later I received a message from someone asking me if I had ever considered starting a blog. I shared with her my previous thoughts. Her advice was to start now, rather than wait. But you don't understand, I am the shy and quiet guy. It is summer vacation, I am supposed to be relaxing. Why would I want to go and do something uncomfortable? Ever since the blogging question was posed to me the universe has been sending hints my way. A few days later I ran into a fellow teacher at the store. She asked if I could send her the links to some of the things that I went over in a recent district PD session. Hmmm... So my experiences might be useful to someone else? Another math teacher in my district started blogging. I saw twitter posts from a former math teacher echoing my idea to use my blog as a reflection. And then, while reading Matt Miller's Ditch That Textbook, I found this quote in big block letters at the bottom of the page: "Ditch the excuses. Just start sharing, now." If I were to ask a magic 8 ball whether I should start blogging now, I am pretty sure that it would tell me that "Signs Point to Yes". So here we are. It is time to start sharing. It is time to get uncomfortable. It is time to step outside of my comfort zone.
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AuthorA father to 2 little girls. Archives
January 2018
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