January marks the beginning of a new year and for many it is a time to make resolutions about how they are going to improve themselves in the coming year. For the past couple years my ‘teacher’ resolution has been to blog regularly, and based on the number of posts on my blog you can see I have failed to keep that resolution each year. My goal is still to be a blogger who posts multiple times per week and shares what I am doing in my classroom, new ideas I have for using technology in the classroom and web tools I have discovered. This year started out much the same for me until I read this blog post: 30 Days of Blogging Challenge (are you in?) and I realized again, that when it comes to blogging, I am always over thinking it. I am always thinking of topics I could blog about, but before I ever get the words on paper, I talk myself out of it. All the excuses that Juliani lists run through my head. The one that hold me back the most, is that everyone else is writing about important and interesting ideas, and no one wants to read what I have to write about.
So I decided to take Juliani up on his challenge. Lets face it challenges are way more fun than resolutions. At least for me they are, because I tend to be competitive, and I like to challenge myself. So, on January 2nd, I signed up and committed to write 100 words per day and post twice per week. (Truth be told, if this was a resolution, I would have already failed because it is now January 9th, and this is my first post.) I may not be perfect, but even if I don’t write everyday, and I miss some posts, each day is a new opportunity to pick up the challenge and keep going.
If, like me you have been wanting to get started with a blog, please check out A. J. Juliani’s post above, and join in the challenge, you have nothing to lose and we have so much to gain. As he says blogging is refreshing, reviving and renewing. (That’s 373 words and didn’t take long at all - like running, the first step out the door is always the hardest.)
