January 19

Reflecting on Step 5 of ‘Building your PLN’: Using blogs.

Tonight I am reading Step 5 of Edublogs’ Building your PLN course.

I am inspired by Sue Waters who says:

I’m sure that lots of people would be totally surprised by the fact that initially I really struggled with the concept of blogging — ‘Why would anyone blog and why would anyone read their blogs?’

It took almost a year from being shown what a blog was to becoming a blogger.

The online tools I used before blogging were excellent for sharing information. But blogging gave me what they lacked; the ability to reflect, collaborate, exchange ideas, and connect with other people.

Ultimately, blogging completely changed my life; it’s the reason why I’m now employed to do the work I do and blogging helped me build a strong PLN.

(Sue, if you read this post, have I included the quote correctly?)

I’m hoping to have a similarly life-changing experience!

I didn’t know that you can use Flipboard to curate your blogs! I’m going to check that out!

Personally I do like it when when bloggers send me an email letting me know when they have a new blog, but I also find a lot of interesting blog posts through Twitter.

Using RSS feeds and Feedly is something I’ve never tried but I might look into in the future.

I found the question, ‘why blog when you can microblog?’, very interesting. Firstly I had never heard of ‘microblogging’ before but I now understand that it is simply commenting on Tweets or Facebook posts. I guess it is a good start, but clearly, as with everything, the more you put in the more you get out. This particularly post that I’m writing tonight is more of a brain dump, but I must say that I’m quite enjoying the process!

 

 

January 10

TweetDeck – Why hadn’t I tried this before!

I’ve just set this up and I’m blown away with how much easier it is to navigate Twitter with it! You can see so much more of Twitter in one go, and you can set all sorts of customisations to make it more likely that you’ll only see what interests you. I’ve also been able to set it up so that I can follow, or even participate in, various Twitter chats.  I love it! It will be my ‘go to’ way of access Twitter from now on!
January 7

Time to Tweet!

I’ve been ‘lurking’ around Twitter for a couple of years now. I enjoy seeing what other educators are writing about and find their links to other blogs and websites very helpful. I’m quite happy to comment in support of the tweets of others, and happily get myself involved in twitter conversations. What I am unsure of is how much I have to offer. And I do get concerned with the idea that the Twittersphere is full of all sorts of commentary, and feel that if we all do it, we might not notice the really profound contributions.

Despite my concerns, I am going to try to share more this year – but no promises! I’ll just see how I go.

If you happen to read this post, I’d love to know your thoughts on Twitter and the multitude of tweets flowing through. Do you share or spend more time reading? If you are a teacher, what do you choose to share? Any advice is welcome!

PS My Twitter handle is @khollow, should you care to follow me!

Category: Uncategorized | 5 Comments on Time to Tweet!
January 3

Blogging in 2019

Hi All,

Well I didn’t get very far in 2018 so I’m going to try again in 2019. I am determined to start blogging!

Tonight I am sitting in my lounge with my family and two pug dogs. It is a hot Australian Summer night and we are watching ‘Solo: a Star Wars Story’. We saw it when it came out at the movies and loved it. Mr H is a Star Wars fan so he got the BluRay for Christmas. He is busy commentating for us – did you know that there are lots of nods to previous Star Wars movies?

Generally, this blog will be about teaching, I expect, but I’m on a well-earned break at the moment – hence Star Wars. I hope everyone else is enjoying their Christmas/New Year season!

My pugs, Darcy & Lizzie!

Cheers,

Kirsty

January 22

Braving the blogosphere!

Hi Everyone,

I have been inspired by Kathleen Morris of Edublogs and a number of other clever people to get my Edublogs blog going. So here goes. This week I am going to create a page that will give you, my reader, a little bit of information about me. I’m also keen to create a page with guidelines for student posting but we’ll see how far I get!

I also have a Seesaw blog running which you can view here: https://blog.seesaw.me/1n2018

July 7

My first blog

Well this is my first test blog. I’m not sure what I want to blog about yet, except perhaps learning how to blog. I’m doing this so I understand more about blogging in my role as a classroom teacher. But you never know – I might get into it!