I currently am managing three professional weblogs. I’ve got more personal blogs but let’s just talk about professional or work related blogs.
Many of you do similar things. I know Jeff Utecht operates the Thinking Stick and Utecht Tips. I’ve been trying to figure out how and why I need three that are all very similar. Here’s my thinking.
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1. Ideas and Thoughts From an Edtech ….This my first blog that began two years ago. I have almost 400 articles written and my audience is quite diverse. You are my audience and I value your input and connections. I view you as my Professional Learning Community or as some call it PLN. Most readers are interested in a wide range of topics that include education and technology in general. It is here where I deal with everything and anything I choose.
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2. Curriculum and Instruction …This a group blog I’ve started to encourage our school division to dive into blogging. Thus far we have 4 groups blogging, including our Curriculum and Instruction team. This was started to be highly conversational. Communicate new ideas, challenge each other and in general create good conversations about learning. While it may provide some resources, it’s largely a forum for ideas for our local teachers and staff.
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3. Technology and Instruction …This is my most recent blog. This is where I will house links to potential resouces and post quick links and tips for teachers and students. More of a “how to” spot. This will be patterned after Jeff’s site and also the Swan Valley Tech site.
Okay, that’s my story and I’m sticking to it. So I’ll ask you, why do you have more than one professional blog?
Dean,
I’m not sure why we need more than one but I have 5. Two I use regularly: wordpress where I have my professional discussions and freewebs where my school information is kept. I then have others that I have opened along the way: bloglines, elgg, and blogspot. I’m trying to figure out which one works best for me. I really like the edublogs and my freewebs pages I’ve been using for a few years. My trouble is that I like features in all of them. Eventually, I’ll have to just have two or three which will have to include a personal one for my own adventures outside education.
Kelly
This is a timely question since I just started a new blog today for me to log notes for my M.Ed. project as I go along (at http://edaudio.blogspot.com if anyone is interested in watching over my shoulder as I work). I suppose I could keep this in Journler or some other application on my computer, but I am not always working on my own computer so I need a journal that is available to me regardless of what computer I’m on. The project also involves switching between Mac OS and Windows on my MacBook (via Boot Camp), so I’d like to be able keep notes regardless of which hemisphere of my outboard brain I am using at any given moment.
I have a blog for my teachers only with the tech happenings at the school, ideas for their classroom, updates they need to know. No reason to share this globally though it’s not password protected so it really is global I guess.
A friend and I do a podcast (Tech Chick Tips) with digital tips for digital educators. We have a blog on that site that would be considered a professional blog, but truthfully we’re not about the blog so much as the podcast. The blog mostly seems to quote other blogs and then we share are own thoughts.
I have more personal blogs than I can count. Okay, so I can count them. Personal weight loss journey, family site with gratuitous stories about my adorable children, another site that talks about my kids a lot but more in a sarcastic but real tone that my mother-in-law with NEVER see, a blog for everything else that doesn’t fit anywhere else. And honestly, I think I’m forgetting one…
Perhaps we should start Blogoholics Anonymous? I can start the blog for that…