A view of Lake Michigan

Module 1 – Basic Blogging

My Biggest Technology Challenge

Being retired has its perks, but the inability to work directly with students makes it challenging to develop technology lessons that are meaningful and effective … and I can only ask my grown kids to try things a couple times before they run and hide! During the 4 years since retiring, new online services bring so many great new ideas for updating and expanding my Library Lessons, and I really want to create and share with actual middle schoolers. If any of my fellow JumpStarters want to volunteer their students or personal family members, I’d sure be grateful!

The Reason I Want to Learn More

Naturally as a School Librarian I’m committed to helping students master the 21st Century skills so necessary in our global, connected society. I want them to understand the type and purpose of tech tools, so regardless of the “brands” that appear, they’ll know which tool to choose for any tech-related activity. That’s why this JumpStart course is so perfect: by focusing on processes it will mold my own mindset so that I can better transmit the conceptual knowledge of tech tools to students so their capacity for creating their unique identity will be limitless!

How I Can Use Blogging

I’ve had a School Library Blog from the early 2000s and later had great success introducing blogging to middle school students through a safe proprietary tool provided by my school district. After retiring I updated my personal education-related Edublogs site, Looking Backward-Reflections of a Retired School Librarian, as a way to share my experience (9 yrs as HS Science Teacher & 13½ yrs as Middle School Librarian) with other School Librarians who could benefit from my successes …and my mistakes! I was oh-so-slowly building a new presence, but after joining the #EdublogsClub in January 2017, their weekly topical prompts really boosted my production!

When I began this course in June, 2017 I decided to use Looking Backward as the ‘Class blog’ and add this new JumpStart blog as a ‘student user’. I also imported my JumpStart 2016 course blog from WordPress as another ‘student user’, so the first week I’d already worked through some of the issues of adding “students” to a class blog!

I want to pick up where I left off last summer and expand on what I learned by trying new tools and refining this process-oriented approach to learning and teaching technology.

 

4 thoughts on “Module 1 – Basic Blogging

  1. You are such a role model for staying active and current — a lifelong learner, even in retirement!

    I was sad to learn that #EdublogsClub will not continue this year, although one could use the old prompts.

    I’ve been a part of #blogamonth and a new prompt will be posted on Monday at Blog A Month Challenge by Drew Frank [@ugafrank]. I plan to rejoin that team again.

    Hope to see you there! — Or maybe we could start a new challenge for newbie bloggers…. ~ Sheri

    1. Thanks for the compliment, Sheri.
      I loved being part of the #EdublogsClub and it really kept me posting each week. We started with so many folks, but at the the end only about 4 or 5 of us were sticking with weekly posts. Some members are finishing the prompts and post their links on the club prompt pages, and I’m sure if you wanted to post about any of the topics the moderators would be thrilled.

      I remember you mentioning #blogamonth in the past, and I just went to the page and joined. Thanks for giving me the link.

      I love the idea of starting a new challenge for newbie bloggers. Let’s talk more about that!
      Barbara

      1. There’s a model “club” for newbie bloggers that I have joined. Actually, novice and veteran bloggers are joining. It’s well thought out. I’ve written an invitation for others to join here: Invitation to Reflective Writing Club It’s from Jan 26-March 8, so not too long. Take a look and see what you think. As I said, between Edubloggers and this Reflective Writing Club, we’d have models to think about if we want to start our own. ~Sheri

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