Why blog?

Why am I blogging? Although I shared in class why I have chosen to blog this year instead of posting a week ahead, recently I realized that I should clarify my purpose here too. I’m writing this blog primarily for my students, but since this website is public I realized that my audience may include parents, colleagues, educators, friends and just maybe, my dad.

Previously I used Google sites for my digital portfolio to park some personal background and lots of information about our class - upcoming curriculum, links to handouts/videos and calendar of school events. I would introduce every week ahead with a blurb with a brief recap of the week before and glimpse into the week at hand. My hope was that students, parents and support staff would use the week ahead to plan, but most importantly support students if they had missed school for whatever reason. I would spend about 2-3 hours planning the week, organizing links and info and writing a blurb. At first, aside from posting on the digital portfolio, I would also email to all students and parents, by November many students would complain about the very long email. The following year, I would just send a brief notification with a link to the week ahead, I took the decrease in email grumblings as an improvement. But after 3 years of doing and posting a week ahead, I learned that the students and families didn’t intuitively go to the week ahead for support, unless I personally directed them during a one-one meeting. Most high achieving students did use the week ahead, but I learned from them that I needed to be more clear on the curriculum purpose - can you clarify why you think its important to approach science through a visual art lens?

Blogging has been an assignment requirement for our juniors during their month-long internship the last two years. For models we used other HTH students junior internship blogs, primarily HTH North County. Students went through an internship bootcamp during 6th period the weeks before leading up to internship, writing a great blog was one of many things they needed to learn prior to leaving. The class of 2015 did a good job with their blogs but most of our students had never seen blogs and were unclear of the purpose. In other words, students followed the prompt of questions and crossed-off assignment requirements. Class of 2016 had a bit more of experience with blogs from prior projects, but still most students didn’t know about blogs and were unclear of the purpose to begin one just for their internship experience. Since Google sites templates are “old school, not slick looking”, more students began to explore weebly, wix and wordpress to create personalized and visually-interesting blogs. With this shift, I couldn’t really help students with their blogs and my week ahead blurb didn’t work as a model. My deficiencies in blogging were highlighted. I decided that I would blog this school year to be a model and learn how to use one of the many templates of Wix.com.

So far blogging has been a bit easier and less time consuming. I have journals and journals of reflections inspired by what has transpired in and out of the classroom, so writing was already part of my weekly habit to creating the week ahead. As a scientist and artist I don’t always feel confident in my writing so the initial thought of blogging was a bit nerve-wrecking; here I am a highschool teacher and still can’t get my verb tenses correct, ARGH! But I have noticed that my visceral response to writing has subsided significantly - especially after two vegan donuts and a match tea from Dark Horse rosters. I more willingly jump into a free write based on notes I’ve thrown into my journal throughout the week. After 8 weeks of blogging I no longer feel like I’m doing this as a model for my students, but instead feel like this it’s just another way to communicate with my students. Here I’m able to celebrate their work, clarify the project’s purpose and share a lot of my passion for teaching at HTHCV.

My blogging is still in its early stages but this week I’m feeling like a pro!

Watch at 12:53 to see me rock it like a pro.