I know I have already posted some blogs on why it is useful for students to blog and the research supporting the use of blogs.  Now I have some real peoples experience I want to add.  I have just read Twittering with Sue Walters and wanted to read why other teachers blog. I have shamelessly admitted that I only started this blog as an assignment, but lo and behold I may have really gotten something out of it! In Share your blog experince bloggers were asked the following questions

• Where you blog and how long you have been blogging for?
• Why you blog? How does it benefit you or your work?
• How blogging has helped your students and how long have you been blogging with students (if applicable)
• Why you feel blogging is important
• What are the 3 most important tips you would share with a new blogger?

I was amazed at the diversity of answers especially to question two and three. The final question was of course the most informative. Many bloggers expressed the need to be yourself and let blogs flow naturally. They stressed that your blog voice will evolve, I can’t believe how much easier blogging has become with time and I wish I read these tips when I first started blogging. Another common tip was consistency and keeping the blogs flowing. Many thought it was more important to have short, frequent blogs .

I was discussing my blog with other students in my course when some-one mentioned they haven’t got any comments yet  their blog. It made me realise I had no idea how you find other blogs and how to generate interest in your blog. So far I have been connecting to others through my blog-roll and sheer dumb luck when I unexpectedly stumble on a fascinating blog.

I had a read of two recommended teacher’s blogs which deal with this issue. In batting for 1000+  Mrs W. talks about how in two months she has built a blog up so much that now she is getting over 1000 readers through her site. She uses twitter to generate interest and connect with like minded people on the web. She aldo cites reading  and commenting on other’s blogs as another important skill.

This brings me to the second part of the question, where do you find other relevant interesting blogs. In Why does technorati still mock me I learnt that there are blog search engines.  Sue Walters recommends visiting technorati and google blog search. Hopefully these will take the guesswork out of finding good blogs for me and make searching for blogs a skill rather than a lucky dip!