Every Teacher Should Blog

From www.serendipityandspice.com

I have realized over the course of this blog, that blogging should be performed by all teachers (and student teachers).  From experience, I feel that blogging has not only significantly contributed to my personal learning as a student teacher, but also has be a great resource for staying up to date with new educational tools and strategies.  It could even be considered a professional development strategy that is has no limit in terms of its educational content.

Blogging is a wonderful way to share your knowledge and discoveries even as you conduct research for whatever personal or professional reason (ie. lesson planning, classroom management, assessment strategies).  Your blog can in turn become a professional development strategy for other professional educators too.  As such, it becomes a great outlet in serving and contributing to your professional community worldwide.

Similarly, since writing reflections consistently is the basis for effective teaching, blogging can also serve this need.  Reflection is about writing what you've learned about your lesson (through experience) and the end result of what you've observed, as a mean of keeping track of how to improve.  It is also through reflection that you learn about yourself, your philosophies and methods of teaching.  Since you are already writing about all this stuff in your reflection journal, why not do so online where others can learn from your observations and experiences too?

When I research and write about a topic that I had difficulty understanding before, I find that getting myself to blog about it actually clarifies the concepts I want to learn.  As teachers, we know that it is when students are able to teach others that learning is at it's peak.  As such, blogging forces you to learn and fully understand a topic before writing about it. 

Come to think of it... students should be blogging too!