Why the Blog? EDET 650

Why the Blog?

During this spring semester at Radford University, I have taken the class EDET 650, Web 2.0. During this class I had the assignment of creating a blog to share some educational ideas- thus the birth of this blog.  The most difficult part of creating the blog was getting followers and increasing traffic to the blog.  Thanks to all of my followers and people that have viewed my blog.  IT WILL CONTINUE even though my class will be over!  

Strategies to Increase Blog Traffic:

1- Throughout the past several weeks, I have tried increasing traffic by continuing to share my new posts through twitter and facebook.  The twitter updates have increased my traffic a lot recently.  I have chosen this strategy because as I have increased the people that I am following, it seems to have increased my hits! It is exciting to see this strategy working.

2- The most successful strategy though has been when I changed my blog URL so that my name was not included and then my blog was linked to the iLearn site in conjunction with the 4th grade videos taken in my classroom.. Most of my hits have recently come through that posting! (Thanks Dr. Dunleavy for working out that linking!) I chose this strategy because if other educators are like me, the more links that are closely tied together, the easier for me to look at them and find information. (This is why I get easily sidetracked when blogging and reading blogs.)

650 Reflection:

This blog has been an extremely powerful tool for my professional development!  Many of the educators that I know are using blogs in their classrooms and I always thought, "I don't have time for that, I don't see the benefits."  Now- I cannot wait to set up a blog for my classroom next year! 

This has also increased my awareness of the benefits of having an extensive PLN. I like conversing with other teachers and reading their blogs, lesson plans, ideas, strategies... Having a connected PLN makes that easier and it is really beneficial to my professional development.  It helps me continue to learn what others are doing and how I can utilize those ideas to the fullest extent!  

Watch for my new classroom blog next year and please stay tuned to future postings about how iPod touches are changing my classroom daily!