Tag: reflection

Posted in Edublogs

Celebrate and Reflect

Posted on by Mrs. Ruiz

celebrate and reflect#EduBlogsClub Prompt #40:

Prompt: Celebrate and Reflect

Some of the topics you might like to discuss this week include:

  • Goals: What are your blogging goals and how have these changed over the year?
  • Achievements: What are you proud of?
  • Benefits: What do you see as the benefits of blogging? Has it been worthwhile for meta-cognition? Relaxation? Building community? Gaining new insights?
  • The future: How would you like your blog to evolve?

While we won’t keep publishing weekly prompts, anyone is still welcome to respond to any of the previous prompts. We will still be monitoring comments so would love to hear from you and read your posts.

Happy New Year!

I have been spending the past several weeks thinking about how I wanted to use my website and getting back on track with the posts from the EduBlogsClub challenge that I have not completed. It seemed fitting to take the last post in the series and use it at the start of a new year. I am not one for resolutions, but I do enjoy reflecting on the the year and thinking about what went well and what could have been done better. I have to say I am going to miss the regular challenges, I did enjoy the prompts, but I guess this is sort of a training wheels moment…off they come! I will remain a follower of EduBlogs of course, I think they do great work and while I never got to use them with my own students, I would recommend them to any educator looking to blog with students or to start their own blog.

What are your blogging goals and how have these changed over the year?

My only blogging goal last year was to complete the EduBlogsClub challenge. While I did not complete all the posts in 2017, I will be completing all the posts as I move into 2018, so I won’t count that goal as a fail. 😉

What are you proud of?

I am proud that I made it through the majority of the EduBlogClub prompts! As of this post I was able to complete 29 out of 40 prompts. I am very pleased with that and I know the other 11 will be complete in the coming weeks. Once this post is live I will only have 10 more prompts to complete!

What do you see as the benefits of blogging? Has it been worthwhile for meta-cognition? Relaxation? Building community? Gaining new insights?

I think blogging is very beneficial. It has certainly been worthwhile for meta-cognition, relaxation, building community and gaining new insights. I highly recommend blogging to anyone…not just educators and their students. I have always been one inclined to journal, but I have never been consistent with it. Perhaps I needed an audience to engage with and to learn from.

How would you like your blog to evolve?

That is a great question, and one I have given a good deal of thought. I left the classroom in 2015 and for the ten years before that my blog had been a communication tool I used with my students and their families. Once I left the classroom, I was unsure what the purpose of my blog would be and it was dormant initially. I then realized that my leaving the classroom was an opportunity to give my blog a new purpose and that is when I began the EduBlogsClub challenge. I am very grateful to them for posting such interesting prompts and for allowing me to be a part of their blogging community. As I transition from educator to aspiring administrator, I will continue to blog about topics related to education and continue to build my virtual professional learning community.

Thank you for reading and I wish you a 2018 full of opportunities and growth.

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Posted in Edublogs

Reflections

Posted on by Mrs. Ruiz

img_4855EduBlogsClub Prompt #26:

Prompt: Write a post reflecting on the last half year of blogging.

Here are some possible topics to help get you started:

  • Share your favorite posts that you’ve written and tell us what they mean to you.
  • Share your three favorite posts that others in the #edublogsclub have written and tell why you loved them.
  • What has been your biggest challenge during the last six months of blogging? Why?
  • What would you like to do differently over the next six months of blogging? Why?
  • What has been your proudest moment in blogging over the last six months? Why?
  • How do you feel that blogging about education has made you a better educator?

The prompt was originally posted in July of this year so I am still a bit behind, but I enjoy the opportunity to reflect.

Favorite posts? I enjoy writing all of them, so I can’t say I have a favorite really. Favorite posts from other EduBloggers? I am going to amend that one to be my favorite EduBloggers. I have followed the blogs of several of the other bloggers in the challenge. And while I enjoy reading all the posts, here are the EduBloggers that have not only stood out, but have continued to blog regularly:

Mandy Ellis, A Principal’s Decree
As an aspiring administrator, I really enjoy being able to read the blog of a blogging principal! While I know some principals do blog, they don’t with the frequency that teachers do. I enjoy reading Mandy’s perspective and seeing how she uses her blog as an administrator.

Alicia Abdul, Readers Be Advised
I really enjoy Alicia’s thoughtful and regular posts from her perspective and experiences as a librarian.

and my newest favorite read…

Kathleen Morris, Primary Tech
Kathleen may be the newest contributor to the EduBlogger account, but she is a wealth of information and a very nurturing support to EduBloggers. Her responses to my posts have really helped remind me how important engagement is. I tend to be a lurker when reading the posts of others (like on Mandy & Alicia’s blogs) and I really need to engage by leaving comments. Thanks for reminding me of the importance of that Kathleen! I even volunteered to be a mentor for the student EduBlogs challenge, I would love to have some student blogs to visit on the regular to leave comments on.

I am pretty sure I had signed up for the EduBlogsClub challenge before and not participated. I am so glad I did participate this year. I may have gotten VERY behind at some point, but I am enjoying the process of catching up. The prompts have me reflecting on my experiences and practices each time I write and that is so valuable.

While there aren’t many months left of this year’s challenge, I expect to finish it on time with the few other EduBloggers that have managed to go the distance. I plan on signing up for the EduBlogsClub challenge each time they offer it. I enjoy having the prompts and they way they get me to think about things. It has been very therapeutic!

Have you reflected on your own blogging? What did you realize? Share with me in the comments below. 🙂

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