Teacher expression in blogs

Delighted to come across the below on Konrad Glogowski’s blog post Learning to be myself. 

What I am really concerned about, however, is my own voice. For the past three years, my three successive grade eight classes enjoyed blogging and created successful and engaging blogging communities. Most of the time, this development took place without me. While I certainly encouraged my bloggers, discussed their work in class, and posted comments to involve my students in instructional conversations, I have always been absent as a person. This year, I want things to be different.

This year, I want my personal voice to be present in the community. I will, of course, continue to be present as Mr.Glogowski, the grade eight Language Arts teacher. I will be present in my didactic and supportive role of an educator, of a classroom teacher who guides and explains. At the same time, I want to be present as Konrad Glogowski, the human being who has his own interests and views. I want to be present as an individual, not an individual reduced to one role.

In other words, I want the students to see me as yet another blogger in their community, as someone whose reason for being there is not only to support and instruct but also to learn. To learn from and with my students.

Suddenly, I realised (and how stupid can I be!) that there are people out there, of course, who are also musing on their own teacher identity and how it is communicated to their students (in this case, through a blog). 

Then I came across Clay Burrell’s posting about another teacher, Lori, in his department who started blogging. It’s not just about communicating with our students, but how we see our colleagues as teachers as well!

I know I loved reading her. It’s fun to discover the style of a person you’ve always only been limited to knowing by mere conversation. I saw a whole different side of her, and one I can’t see often in department or faculty meetings, and other such high joys. 

Lori herself wrote about Clay in her blog

Could I write a post cursing when Mr.-Loves-Computers-and-Can’t-Understand -When-I-Don’t pushes and pushes and keeps introducing more and more and more new?  Yes.

But I thank him and all others out there for the constant shared excitement in the face of entrenched teaching habits, thinking, and frustrations.

So, apart from the aha moment of hearing other people thinking about identity and how its communicated online, how am I going to make the most of such blog postings, which I will start to collect (on this dedicated wiki) to join my box files of printed articles etc. And the ethical nature of this sort of collecting is interesting to ponder. As a researcher, can you join in people’s conversations, make comments on blogs with gay abandon? Or do you stand back and just observe?