Blogging is and has been a long time passion of mine. Having your own space. Having a place to share your words, create and connect with other through stories is just the most incredible and fulfilling thing to me.
From my very first EdCamp I was hooked. The vision, the purpose, the structure it is an amazing and deeply fulfilling and energizing experience.
So this summer (yeah yeah…I’m a smidge late on the post but seriously you wouldn’t have read about it in the middle of July) when I heard there was going to be a EdCamp Home 3.0 organized by the uber amazing and leave you in technology awww David Theriault @davidtedu, Karl Lindgren-Streicher @LS_Karl, Kelly Kermode @coachk and Shawn White @swpax. I was all in (plus I just had to see how they were going to put together an EdCamp with Google Hangouts with educators from all over the United Stated). The session idea forms went out, completed by Edcamp Home attendees, collected and the session were formed….on the list of sessions…Blogging. I really couldn’t wait to attend! Any chance I have to talk blogging…creating, designing, theory, ideas, creative sharing, student blogging, teacher blogging … blogging …I’m absolutely and totally all in!
The session were held via google hangouts with other educators from around the United States (yes, it was incredible and yes I was still in awwww) It was more than I could have hoped for and just as equally powerful as the EdCamps I have attended in real life. When I joined the session I expected to be chat about blogging formats, commenting theory, digital citizenship and ideas about what students should/could write about. It quickly became more then that. As quickly as we all could introduce ourselves…. Kevin Ashworth @SLOlifeKevin, Jedidiah Butler@MathButler, KOgden @KOgden97 and Ms. Fagin @msfagin share some of our ideas, the struggle to connect consistently with other classroom/student blogs came up and the idea of creating something that would help classrooms and student bloggers connect took over. #BlogPals was born.
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Now that we are all well into the second half of our semester or into our second quarter, I figure my fellow educator peeps have fallen into their routines, know their students and are ready to get their blog on (see there was another reason for me waiting until now). Classrooms and students are ready to share their voices with more than each other and four walls. They are ready to connect with another classroom(s).
