I haven’t been blogging for long, but so far, I have been pleasantly and excitedly surprised by the professional development that I am experiencing as I share my thoughts online. I am beginning to see many positive effects on my own practice, as well as the opportunity to share and influence the practices of like-minded educators in our online community.

Here are the benefits that I see thus far, that I am certain will expand and become even better as I continue on my blogging journey!

• Motivation to keep up my professional learning so that I can blog regularly
• An organized way for me to document my ideas, thoughts, actions, and reflections
• An on-going portfolio of my personal and professional growth
• A way to gather ideas, strategies, opinions, reviews, and tools from a vast online community
• A place to gain positive support from educators who understand the challenges and realities of education in the 21st century
• Make connections not only with professionals in my own field, but also students, parents, and professionals from other related fields of work
• Accountability for a standard and quality of work in my practice as well as what I share online
• Model and experience first-hand, the kind of relevant and authentic learning that we want our students to engage in
• Searching for online tools, images, articles, or media items to expand my thoughts, reflect on, feature, or try, always leads to additional exciting resources to explore
• Offers a growing number of differentiated ways to express thoughts, opinions, and ideas: through writing, video blogging, creating other types of media, using images, podcasts, mind maps, and multiple modes of synchronous and asynchronous communication

I must give a huge thank you to my own online community–everyone who has helped me to learn and grow through sharing their ideas, support, and inspirational stories! I encourage you to share the metacognitive, personal, and practical ways in which you are learning and growing through the use of blogs and other tools.

Here is an interesting video titled, The potential of blogging for knowledge sharing and staff development by the UN Knowledge Campus, which explains many ways in which blogs, wikis, and other online tools can be used to support professional growth.