I've started this blog for a number of reasons, I guess, but the central most being that I needed space. Yes, I have a blog already, and though I've done a poor job of maintaining it, I feel like it's been a success. It's entered me into a conversation taking place in circles of educators, a conversation about teaching, middle school, and technology integration. I want to be part of the edtech convo, so having this blog is not a problem. I'm sure that I'll continue to maintain it.
But the need for a new space can be summed up quite well in John Spencer's recent post that gives advice for new bloggers. The biggest piece was that one should not start a blog writing into a particular niche. Rather, one should start blog, write about what's important, and the niche will emerge organically.
I'm reading Peter Elbow's Writing without Teachers right now, and reading it has made me realize that Spencer's advice on blog writing mirrors Elbow's ideas about how writing happens. One doesn't start with a clear understanding of a writing piece then transcribe this conception exactly as it is conceived. Rather, the act of writing the piece itself is what shapes the writers idea of what the piece should be.
So, I decided that I needed to start this new blog, not just because I wanted a space to write about ideas unrelated to teaching with technology in middle school. Actually, I think that there is a pretty good chance that much of what I do write about here can in some way fall into that category. But, it's a category that I am not limited to, and this lack of limitation is what I need.
Here, I envision myself posting process work and thinking. The writing that needs to happen in order for me to figure out what I want to say. I'll write here to draft ideas for Teaching with Technology in the Middle (I especially like this idea, as more than two-thirds of my ideas for that blog never made it past draft form. I'll write here for the daily reflective posts we'll be doing this summer with the UNC Charlotte Summer Institute. And I'll write here whenever I have an important idea to work though that ought to be heard in a public space.
A more refined focus for this blog may emerge, and while I'm cool with that possibility, it's not the end that I have in mind. Actually, I don't have one in mind at all. That's the point.
