Seriously, as I was trying to think of an inquiry question for this topic, I was working on my post on social networking, and I read Dustin Wax’s post, 9 Tips to Get the Most Out of Social Media. Tip #9 really struck with me.

Add value

This is the single most important thing to remember on any social networking site. Do whatever it takes to make your posts, your profile, your story submissions, or whatever the “currency” of the site it, as valuable as possible. You add value when you submit a link; you add more value when you include a really good description of the article; you add more value still when you explain why I would want to read it; and you add yet more value when you tell me what the author left out or how the information might be used.

My discussion question for this topic is “How can I add value in my blogging?”

There are lots of suggestions for good blogging out there. Steve Dembo, on his blog, Teach42, is almost through a series, 30 Days to Being a Better Blogger. For each tip Dembo discusses why bloggers should follow the tip, and explains how he does this in his own practice. Tips include a wide variety of ideas ranging from technical tips (ensuring your blog can be read on mobile devices), to content (inviting a guest blogger, creating a mission statement) and more. You can find all the links on a wiki here. Some of his tips are based on those from Darren Rowse’s series, 10 Habits of Highly Effective ProBloggers.

In Becoming a Blogging Maestro: Composing Beautiful Blog Music, Vicki Davis, an eloquent and passionate educator, shares how she creates blog entries. This is a must read. She says, “I believe that blogs with truth, variety, passion, inspiration, and technical precision are those that stand head and shoulders above the rest,” and her post discusses how she begins with those qualities in mind as she writes.

As a result of my reading and reflecting on my own blog, I’ve developed a list of strategies to implement to add more value.

1. Write more comments on other people’s blogs.

Vicky Davis writes extensively about this in Cool Cat Teacher Blog: Ten habits of bloggers that win! She points out that of course when you write about an article, you link to it, but “After you post, go to the person’s article that you quoted. Write a meaningful comment or a small excerpt of what you wrote in your blog and hyperlink to your post.” She sees this as being “part of being a responsible part of the global conversation.” Before I read this I felt that my blog was insignificant enough that I wouldn’t waste “the experts” time by commenting on theirs.

 This is a tip that Steve Dembo also gives in Day 8 – Comment unto others. I was struck by the comment on this tip that Bill Ferriter wrote:

…All too often, people think blogging = writing.

Blogging REALLY = writing + listening + responding + reading + arguing + listening some more + rethinking + revisiting

When bloggers get stuck in the “blogging is about the posts that I write” mindset, all we’ve got in the blogosphere is a heaping cheeseload of digital soapboxes, don’t we?

The commenting side of blogging has been great fun because it forces me to consider my own positions related to the author’s initial posts. Sometimes I agree, other times I disagree-but articulating that response ALWAYS improves my own understanding.
2. Write some thank-you notes.

This idea comes from Steve Dembo in Day 3 – Write a Thank You note. He suggests you can write to thank another blogger who has linked or you, or you can write a note to someone who inspired you to start blogging. I plan to write to some bloggers who I find particularly inspirational. Dembo says, “Trust me when I say, there is no greater compliment than to read an email from someone saying that you were an influence in their decision to begin blogging. So make sure that they know they were. They’ll appreciate it.”

3. Create a mission statement for my blog

This class will soon be over, but I want to continue blogging. Steve Dembo suggests that you create a mission statement for your blog. He suggests, “Start off with the surface ideas. Think about what drew you to blogging in the first place and why you started blogging. Then think about why you’re continuing to do it today. Do you blog for the same reason now that you did when you started? Is your blog professional, personal or both? Is it a place to share unbiased, impartial information or are you posting your thoughts and opinions? Are you restraining yourself to specific topics on your blog, or is it wide open?”

I’ll be reflecting on why and what I write. I have always written for my colleagues, and had a built-in audience. Now that I am no longer part of a school community I’ll need to think about how I move ahead.

4. Be a Creator of Useful Content

In 10 Habits of Highly Effective ProBloggers Darren Rowse says, “Successful bloggers give their readers something that they need. . . . Not only is their content useful but in many cases it is looked at by others as being original and something that makes them a ‘thought leader’ in their niche rather than just a recycler of what others are saying.”

I believe that Stephen Downes’ advice to “Be yourself” is an essential part of this. In his article, eLearn: Opinions 7 Habits of Highly Connected People, Downes says, “What makes online communication work is the realization that, at the other end of that lifeless terminal, is a living and breathing human being. The only way to enable people to understand you is to allow them to sympathize with you, to get to know you, to feel empathy for you. Comprehension has as much to do with feeling as it does with cognition.”

I’ve tried to be myself as I write about topics important to me, incorporating pictures, anecdotes, and references to my life as a way of illustrating what I’m talking about. I’ll continue to do this as much as possible, as way of making myself real and of value to my audience.

Hopefully these four strategies will help to add value to my voice in the blogosphere.

There is no doubt in my mind that I have written some blogs posts that might be considered true blogging, as Richardson describes, but I know I’ve also broken some of the rules. My inquiry question for this topic is, “What elements of complex – true – blogging do I already exhibit, and how can I expand on these to improve?”

 Looking at Richardson’s spectrum (Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts,  and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms, 2009, p. 31), I can see that there are some rules I’ve broken. I have listed links, although always in a context where there was (I thought at the time) a reason for doing so. One example is my post on blogs as PD. I listed some useful blogs at the end of my post and should have written about why I selected them. That, I’m afraid, was due to lack of time as I had been away on family business and did not have time for second thoughts – not my most carefully crafted work.

I certainly have given links with description, some deeper than others. I have tried to write as Richardson described in #7, “Links with analysis and synthesis, that articulate a deeper understanding or relationship to the content being linked and written with potential audience in response mind (true blogging)” (2009, p. 31).

I think one of my strongest posts was It’s All About the Connections: VoiceThread . I wrote about the power of the tool, connected it to my own life, looked at application for both teachers and students, and made a connection to a revised Bloom’s taxonomy. Looking back at that post, I think I was truly blogging.

So what can I do to improve? I think I need to continue reading more blogs, and also reread my own. I can revise posts that are not well done. I can look for “true blogging” and continue to refine my skills. Where do I want to end up? Richardson quotes Ken Smith, (2009, p. 30) who suggests that instead of assigning students to write, we ask them to read widely and then think and write about what they’ve read, making connections. Eventually they will have other people reading what they’ve written and responding and discussing their ideas.

 I haven’t had a lot of comments, so I haven’t had the opportunity for a back-and-forth conversation. When I read Richardson’s blog, I can see how this refines and develops the ideas he is sharing, and I can see how powerful this is. In his post about Clay Shirky’s idea about using media for action (http://weblogg-ed.com/2008/media-for-knowledge-vs-media-for-action/), Richardson has multiple comments from other great bloggers, and they also comment on one another’s comments, arguing, clarifying, and disagreeing with great energy. Wow!

This beautiful tree is old, much older than our house, and an arborist with the city recently told us that it has the biggest trunk of any tree in Edmonton. It’s so big that it’s impossible to take a photograph of the whole tree. Its branches have been bent and broken by the wind, and shaped by many human hands over the years.

As I was planning this entry on blogs as professional development, it occurred to me that trying to capture the variety and breadth of blogs useful to teachers and teacher-librarians is like trying to photograph the intricate network of our tree. It’s just not possible to capture it all. What I’ve decided to do is take a few snapshots from different angles to share some of the power of the blog network.

How Blogs are Used

In Towards School Library 2.0: An Introduction to Social Software Tools for Teacher Librarians, Jo-Anne Naslund and Dean Giustini summarize the research on how blogs are being used in schools. Blogs can encourage

• Online chat, debate and reflective practice.
• Students to share their personal stories.
• “Reading about other schools and their challenges, and what students and teachers are thinking, talking about and feeling.”
• Reaching out to the community
• Creating gathering places for professional development
• “Providing a window into teaching”
• Getting “information out to the public about teachers, and what they do.”
• Sharing “information about current issues and practices of interest.”

Scott Leslie, an educational technology researcher and emerging technology analyst, and a prolific blogger himself, has created a matrix of uses for Web logs in education. These are divided into instructors and students reading and writing blogs. Among others, instructors’ uses include reading subject-specific blogs to keep up with current practice, and writing blogs as instruction for students or as networking with colleagues.

Tony Lowe has created a Drag and Drop version of the matrix to which you can add your own descriptors, a wonderful tool to use in a workshop on blogging with teachers.

In her eloquent article, Becoming Teacher Librarian 2.0, Anita Brooks Kirkland discusses the responsibility of teacher librarians in ensuring the early adoption of web 2.0 in schools. This includes using blogging.

“We need to learn about this huge movement, where we have access to the knowledge and opinions of anyone and everyone, and where the value of that information is assessed and ranked by the user community. If we are to remain the information specialists in our schools, we need to master this new media and understand where it fits into the broader information landscape. We need to become Teacher-Librarian 2.0 to help provide context for our Web 2.0 students.”

Kirkland goes on to provide four ways to get up-to-date:

• Explore: Teacher-librarians must “Subscribe to, and follow the blogs of leading thinkers in the school library world and the wider library world to engage in the conversation about these issues.” She provides a list of some of these.
• Exploit professional learning opportunities: “More and more professional learning opportunities are accessible to us when and where we need them, especially where face-to-face learning is inaccessible.” Many conferences now are offered online and/or are blogged as they occur and afterwards.
• Consider the implications: “We need to engage in professional conversation about these issues and collaborate on developing the solutions.” Reading, writing, and commenting on blogs are ways to participate in these discussions.
• Engage: It is essential that t-ls learn about and daily use the new technologies, including blogging, to support their programs.

Finding Blogs for Teachers

There are many ways to find useful blogs, in addition to searching, not including using Google blog search. These include checking the blog rolls, or lists of blogs, on blogs written by people you respect and whose work you follow. You can also find blogs on web sites such as Edutopia and Education World, or on sites for professional journals such as Teacher Magazine. Conferences often have blogs as part of their web sites, such as the recent K-12 Online Conference.

The Edublog Awards provides a wide assortment of blog links, giving 15 awards, including 7 different types of educational blogs.

• Best individual blog
• Best group blog
• Best resource sharing blog
• Best teacher blog
• Best librarian / library blog
• Best educational tech support blog
• Best elearning / corporate education blog

In addition to the seven listed above, The Edublog Awards are presented in these categories, providing even more possibilities for professional development:

• Best new blog
• Most influential blog post
• Best educational use of audio
• Best educational use of video / visual
• Best educational wiki
• Best educational use of a social networking service
• Best educational use of a virtual world

While the 2008 winners have not yet been announced, you can view the 2007 winners as well as the top nominees. You can also look back at previous winners. Here is a plethora of educators writing about all aspects of education, from the district administrators’ standpoint to the university academician to the classroom teacher to the teacher librarian, and all areas in between. In addition, in the Awards blog you can find blogs that people think should have been nominated but weren’t.

Finding Blogs for Teacher Librarians

Naslund and Giustini suggest that “A good place for teacher librarians who want to explore blogs is Alice Yucht’s EduBiblioBlog List which identifies over 50 library media-related blogs divided by category: kidlit blogs, young adult lit blogs, school library blogs, infolit blogs, edtech blogs, library land blogs and association blogs. Many of these blogs are created for teacher librarian associations while others are written by teachers who share their views about school library issues, children’s and young adult literature.”

Impact as A 21st-Century Library Media Specialist, by Peggy Milam Creighton, discusses many expert professionals in the field. This article is a superb source of information about how these “exemplary library media specialists” work to improve their practice and share their expertise. Check the many links to find blogs (as well as other resources such as wikis and nings) created by these movers and shakers.

Professional Blogs to Explore, from Becoming Teacher Librarian 2.0, by Anita Brooks Kirkland, provides a good beginner’s list of blogs:

Blogs about school library programs:

• Joyce Valenza’s NeverEndingSearch
• Doug Johnson’s Blue Skunk Blog
• David Warlick’s 2 Cents Worth
• Alan November’s AlanNovember Weblog

Blogs from the wider world of libraries:

• Jenny Levine’s The Shifted Librarian
• Michael Stephen’s Tame the Web: Libraries and Technology
• Stephen Abram’s Stephen’s Lighthouse

Finding My Blogs

The most useful resource for me as a teacher librarian has been the list serv LM_Net, (read Doug Johnson’s post on LM_Net here – he calls it the “original Read/Write web”) which has been graced over the years by postings from Peter Milbury, Mike Eisenberg Joyce Valenza, Doug Johnson, Shonda Brisco, Barbara Braxton, Gary Price, and many, many others. When I began to look for blogs to follow, I started with looking for blogs by these experts I already knew. Then I looked at the blogs they read, and expanded my repertoire.

Of course our instructor, Joyce de Groot, and Will Richardson, author of our textbook, Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms, have expanded my horizons exponentially. In addition, a major joy of taking the Web 2.0 course is the wealth of new material – and new-to-me blogs – shared by my classmates. Thank you to you all for this! You can see a selected list of the 40+ blogs I follow below, and in the blog roll to the left of this post.

Blogroll

• Doug Johnson’s Blue Skunk Blog
• Joyce Valenza’s NeverEndingSearch – Blog on School Library Journal
• The Edublogger
• TL-DL Blog
• Weblogg-ed learning with the read/write web – Will Richardson
• Steve Hargadon
• Cool Cat Teacher Blog
• Moving at the Speed of Creativity
• OLDaily ~ by Stephen Downes

In the last chapter of his book, Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms, Will Richardson illustrates one teacher using all of the tools discussed in the previous chapters. “Epilogue: The Classroom of the Read/Write Web” shows an English teacher’s use of Web 2.0 tools to enhance teaching and learning. 

Warlick’s article goes further. In this vision every teacher in the school uses various 2.0 tools to facilitate teaching and learning, including blogs, wikis, podcasts, social bookmarking, and more. This technology helps infuse the school and the school system with a culture of sharing and collaboration that includes teachers, students, administrators, and parents. Even the superintendent of schools is in constant touch with what’s happening in his schools as a result of effective use of 2.0 technology.

While I do find Warlick’s vision intimidating, I am also inspired. My favorite part of the article is the description of the role of the teacher librarian, who, along with the school tech facilitator, subscribes to all the teachers’ weekly blog reports that summarize all that will be taught. The t-l and tech facilitator map all the curricula that are being taught in the school each week. They then research various resources and strategies to share with teachers and students.

I wonder if there is a school district where this vision has become a reality. I love the possibilities this vision suggests to me.
 

This blog is part of my classwork for EDES 501, Exploration of Web 2.0 for Teaching and Learning, taught by Joanne de Groot. Although I’ve created very simple blogs and wikis before, I am definitely lacking expertise with Web 2.0.

In his book Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms, Will Richardson zeroes in on what I’m lacking. He describes teachers who “have taken the work they had students do in the paper, analog world and simply digitized it” (p. 8). That probably describes about 75% of the work I’ve been collaborating on with my colleagues. Now I have the opportunity to use this blog as my tool to construct my own learning.  

I decided to use Edublogs for this blog, as it comes highly recommended by colleagues, and it is ad-free. As I hope to be using this with teachers and students, I want to be sure I am really familiar with it. I have already discovered that the instructions leave something to be desired! 

I felt quite sheepish when it took me four hours to figure out how to upload a Word document! I would have expected to be easy, given that this is designed for teachers to use with their students. I plan to create some Edublog tutorials of my own later.

I am also hoping that it will not generate the spam email I got when I used other programs.  I have found it rather “glitchy” but perhaps that is is my lack of expertise.

Here’s to new challenges!