Blogging as Reflection?

When I first went about creating a blog I did some reading about teacher and education blogs and how they could be used to enhance communities of practice.  When we revamped the blogs back in 2011 I did some wider reading about the different roles Blogging can fill in Educational Systems.  I've tended to keep my eye in on certain subjects ever since.

One trend I've watched closely, and watch grow enormously, is Teachers using Blogs to reflect on their practice through editorials.  When I first started looking I thought to myself "hey, there's a great way to get your ideas out there into the wider teaching community" but it took a while to catch on to what was going on in a fuller sense.

Teachers were creating their own little networks of like-minded individuals.  People who read what they were writing and adding comments that helped them reflect on their practice and provide an incentive to move on to bigger and better things, keeping themselves on the cutting edge of Teacher Practice.

I take a different approach to this blog, it's purpose being part of the operation of the Wodonga CRT Support Network.  I'm looking to inspire further research in an existing Community of Practice rather than create a new one to help me reflect on my own personal experiences.  That doesn't stop me working my way through many teacher blogs in my own private search for opportunities to reflect on my practice as a Teacher.

Blogging is kind of unique for reflection in that you put yourself out there, on anything up to the global stage, to seek a wonderfully wide variety of feedback from just about anywhere in the world.  Sometimes you get a little bit institutionalized slogging away in any given educational system but Blogging can help you break that mould by inviting input from people in a different state's, or country's, educational systems.

It can be inspirational in that you can find answers to problems you face when your own educational system doesn't quite have anything to fill that gap.  Sometimes it's even inspirational when you see Teachers in less fortunate countries wishing they had what you have at a point when you are disheartened with your own system.

It can take some time to find the right blogs for you, or to start your own and build a community, but what a wonderful way to take a day-trip through global education!

Regards,

Mel.