I’m going to be travelling soon to countries I have never been to before. I’m going to try to keep a blog, even if no one reads it. Why? It makes me commit to writing. It is an authentic “assignment” – there is an audience out there who may be interested in what I have to say. I’m not much of a risk taker and both the travel and writing for other people is a risk I feel I have to take to make my life fuller. So on two levels, I am embarking on personal and professional development.

Too often we ask students to write, yet we do not write ourselves. We ask students to read and so many teachers don’t read. I feel it is essential to model to our students what we expect from them. So this is my personal writing assignment.

This week’s Live Classroom event is about blogs and simple ways to use them. I hope we will get a good turnout. Each of us is on a voyage as lifelong learners. Even if you don’t put the learning into place immediately, this may be a ticket for future travels.

At the beginning of the year we showed you a video of Kathy Cassidy and her grade one class. You can see it on the wiki – Telling the New Story She has also embarked on a journey. She started with a blog for her class and is now writing a reflective blog. You can find it here. It’s a great place to start reading blogs and reading inspires thinking which may inspire writing which may lead to you starting your own blog. No hurry – Kathy took a few years before she felt comfortable enough to do it. If you visit her blog, write a comment here and share what you discovered.

I’ll let you know where to follow my travels. It’s scary – but I’d love to share the trip. Your comments here and on my travel blog will help to make this a more meaningful experience for us all.

Susan