Photo Credit: Auntie P via Compfight ccLast spring I participated in a SEETA Webchat. The topic I chose to talk about was blogging for reflection and the way it can help in teacher development. SEETA webchats are just what they say they are - chats. The people who join the chat can ask questions and contribute to the discussion any way they want.
Participating in the webchat was a fun thing to do, but it also gave me food for thought. I was under the impression that there were people out there who wanted to start blogging, but were not quite sure how to do it. Others have tried blogging, found it solitary, time-consuming and unrewarding and given up. I went to my summer holiday thinking about what I could do to help them.
Anna Parisi (the founder of SEETA) was kind enough to help and that was the beginning of our little blogging forum. A fellow blogger, Merve Oflaz, joined and soon we had a forum bustling with activity. Still, all the teachers who joined us were experienced bloggers. There were no new or wannabe bloggers in the forum and those were the teachers we were trying to reach. That's when Anna suggested that we write a booklet for new bloggers and post it on SEETA. This booklet would lead new bloggers through the initial stages of blogging and help them connect with other educators who blog.
I loved the idea of a booklet. I thought how cool it would be if I could reach out to the wider blogging community and people in my PLN. What if every chapter was written by a different blogger?
This is where you come in. For, I need your help. Would any of you good people reading this post like to contribute a booklet chapter? If you are wondering what to write about, then think about what you wish you had known when you started blogging. Or something others shared with you and you found very useful. How did you find blogging ideas? What should a blog post look like? And a comment? How did you find readers and build your PLN? How do you use Twitter and Facebook to connect to other bloggers? Also, we need technical help. How do you set up a blog? Which widgets do you find useful? Or none of the above, but something else you would like to share with new bloggers.
Choose a topic, or I will suggest a topic for you.
If you are interested, please get in touch with me via email, or leave a comment under this post. Or, you can go straight to this Google Doc and choose a topic for yourself.
Linked to this post: 7 Reasons Why Educators Should Blog (also to serve as Chapter 1 of the booklet).