Blogging4Educators: Reflections on Week One

This month, the blogs created during last year's Blogging for Beginners EVO workshop turn one-year-old! After reading a Happy Birthday message to the blogs from Monika, I was really happy to think about all the blogging we've done over the past year! Now that Blogging4Educators is in full-swing, I'm just thinking how many more blogs we'll be able to fete next year at this time.

Before the Blogging4Educators session started, Ana Maria and I were working on creating the Blogging for Educators on Blogger. I was really looking forward to the interaction that would occur there, and did it ever! At the end of week one, there were 37 comments on the post asking participants to share their personal reflections on blogging, and to my surprise, 58 comments from participants explaining the differences between blogs, wikis, and web sites in their own words! Another great thing about hosting these discussions on the blog is there is no need to thread these discussions on the wiki; all the replies can easily be accessed via the blog!

I have learned so many things already through the interaction that is happening in the group. The highlight of Week One for me was attending a live session at Wiziq. Carla A gave a concise and informative presentation on the various tools we are using for the session and their purposes. Then, almost everyone had a chance to speak, although we noticed the moderator has to keep tight control of the mic; if participants in a Wiziq session forget to mute their mics when they're not speaking, there can be a lot of noise. Finally, we all started collaborating on the whiteboard: drawing, writing, and sharing pictures. The possibilities for connecting are just amazing! The live sessions are always my favorite parts of the EVO sessions; to be with people from so many countries is always thrilling.

The Blogging Team worked for 6 months to create this year's session; however, we could never have imagined what the session would become once it got into full swing! Every morning when I check my e-mail, Twitter, RSS feeds, and so on, I am in awe of all the activity. The coming weeks will certainly be a fascinating journey for all of us. Off to bed now... Bee's presentation will start at 6 a.m. tomorrow morning for me! Blog post to follow.