What I Learned from Blogging

"What did you learn from this blogging experience about yourself and about blogs as tools for teaching and learning? What surprised you about this blogging experience? Why?"

I had no experience whatsoever with blogging prior to starting my “I Am Blogger” project. I knew it was a tool used by many teachers (mainly high school, from my understanding), but I really didn’t see much use for it in my school, especially with our student population. Not very many of our families have computers in their homes, and when they do have an opportunity to use them, they’re not likely to be accessing the school Web site or teachers’ blogs. But I realized that although our students may not use blogs, they’re a great way to communicate with others in my profession. In addition, I’m now more aware of what blogs can do, and I’ve noticed that almost every one of my high school age daughter’s teachers use one. Students can access it to see upcoming assignments, or what they need to do if they missed class or forgot to write down the homework.

One thing that really surprised me about my blog was that someone outside of my group actually read it. I posted a blog about using Camtasia, a screen casting application, and mentioned that I intended to purchase it for my school. Sometime later, I noticed that a representative from Techsmith, the company that developed Camtasia, had posted a comment to my blog letting me know that as an educator, I was eligible for a significant discount when I purchased the software. So, instead of paying almost $300 for the application, I paid less than $200. I had thought my blog would simply be a class assignment, but discovered that it had “real-life” implications as well.