Well...This is the End

Well... This is the end...

No it's not teacher friends because I will see most of you for Internship II! For those of you who are grad students or won't be doing Internship II in the Fall, I enjoyed our semester together and I wish you all the best and a fantastic summer! 

What did I learn about myself as a writer through these blog posts?

I have learned that once you have a topic to write about, blog posting can be addicting! I wanted to write a blog, become "blog famous" like the movie Julie and Julia with Meryl Streep and Amy Adams, and eventually become a famous writer who got her start as a lowly blogger... However, you have to have material in order to write. For instance, I love writing poetry but it is my firm belief that poetry is pointless unless you have inspiration. 

All in all, I've learned that students write with more purpose and focus when they have an idea/topic in mind. I felt that my blogs were creative and I had a lot of fun with the titles as well as the content. As a writer, I believe that I have a unique voice/style and writing creatively is a strong suit of mine. I was worried that my creativity was being snuffed out because I've had to write so many academic papers which require research and professional discourse over stylistic tone. 

What did I learn about the digital writing realm? 

I learned that digital writing is an amazing skill that I believe my future students must master in order to survive in this progressive world. Technology is continuously advancing and I feel that students must be proficient in digital writing but it starts with basic writing skills. I think that a paired instruction (using digital writing and pencil-to-paper writing) would work best in this society/my future classroom. 

Furthermore, I have thoroughly enjoyed being a part of a digital writing community. I love to see comments on my blog and comment on others. I feel that the blog assignments have given me opportunities to know my classmates and their passions on a deeper level. 

What were my challenges and successes while blogging?

I felt that blogging was an awesome experience and I felt that I made my posts interesting an insightful to readers. I didn't have much trouble with understanding how to create and publish/share a blog because I have already played around with Blogger before. However, if I had never blogged before, I believe that would have been a huge challenge for me starting out.

The most challenging part of blog posting would be length (as you can probably see by now)... I always write too much because I have so much to say!

How would I integrate blogging into the classroom?

There are many ways I would integrate blogging into the classroom because I feel it is a relevant, creative, fun and collaborative outlet for students/teachers/people in general.  

1. For homework assignments- I feel it would be much easier to establish a writing community and simple assignments through a creative outlet like blogging. 

2. For projects- In order to incorporate the Florida Standards "publishing work" focus, blogging would be a great way to foster collaborative learning and hold students to a higher standard because their work will be public.

3. For personal reasons- I would love to create a more private blogging community of teachers who share stories to help other teachers learn from their mistakes, talk about funny (appropriate and, of course, anonymous) stories, and share authentic struggles and tips. 

4. For sharing my personal work- I would want to have a public blog account to show my work to students (as a model example) or even to show that we all have off days for creative writing.