Jan
27
Budding Blogs and Dandelions
January 27, 2008 | Tagged beginners, blogging4educators, blogs, budding, dandelions, EVO08, metaphors |
The Blogging Season
No, I’m not into gardening at all, but I have always found metaphors essential to grasp new concepts and to connect to them emotionally. Just as flower buds look fresh and promising anticipating spring, the beginning of the blogging season at EVO always fills us with renewed hope and an undeniable sense of excitement as we build broader networks of educators who will not settle and who are ready to explore new grounds for their teaching on the web.
Budding Blogs
The first two weeks at Blogging4Educators have been really hectic. 169 participants + 10 moderators have exchanged more than 600 messages with introductions, questions, tips, accomplishments, help requests and invitations, building initial bonds of fellowship and trust. During the last couple of days, however, most of the subject lines include the words “My New Blog”. It’s just moving to see all the care and dedication teachers have put into their budding blogs, from choosing a template that transmits the right atmosphere to a name that reflects the purpose of their blogging journey. The first posts generally include first impressions and reflections on the creation process, introductions to the online world, technical considerations, aims and statements of purpose. There are blogs related to art, university, high-school and primary classes, brain-based learning, reflections, etc. Many participants have also found their own metaphors for their blogs. There are boomerangs, watercolors, chats, potpourris and as many compelling concepts as a lively group of enthusiastic teachers can put together. Just as they come up, we are proud to witness an emerging ecosystem of edublogs on our session’s Pageflakes.
Seeding the Web
As first attempts to connect to each other, these budding bloggers proudly published their new URLs on the YG and in their comments on colleagues’ blogs. They also started building their blogrolls, spreading links to other blogs into the new B4Ed blogosphere. This reminds me of dandelions which spread their seeds worldwide. While many people consider dandelions an invasive weed, others claim their health benefits and write poems to their beauty. Similarly, blogs are seen by some as trivial online journals that plague the web whereas an increasing number of educators can account for their relevance in the learning process. In particular, these ubiquitous flowers have a very special meaning for me since after my immediate reaction to their questions about dandelions through a post on our class blog , my TOEFL students understood the importance of contributing their knowledge and resources and sharing information about topics that interested them with the whole group. However, unlike dandelions whose seeds develop without any special attention, blogs continue growing and spreading ideas on the web through the perseverance and commitment of the authors and the contribution of thoughtful readers. It is our intention at Blogging4Educators to facilitate meaningful connections and knowledge sharing among participants as our blogging skills flourish and become deeply rooted in 
our teaching practice.
Dear B4Eders, A bunch of hugs for all of you!
Related Google search: budding blogs, metaphors and dandelions
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Why dandelions?
Dandelion blog
My dandelion patch
Photos: Flikr (with Creative Commons license)
Comments
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hey carla,
many thanks for your encouragements! these few weeks can’t have been easy for you or your colleagues! let me just say what an amazing job you’ve all done providing support and informations to all of us. it’s been really invaluable.
a colleague of mine and i (she is in another workshop) were just saying how nice and supportive everybody’s been.
looking forward to next week!
andreea
PS: Yes, tango’s just magic! love to watch the dance too!
Dear Andreea,
Thanks for dropping by!
These weeks have been amazing and have really exceeded my expectations. We are all learning so much together!
EVO is a state of mind. Stay tuned!:)
Hugs, Carla