Over the course of five years, educator Jennie Magiera has written 182 blog posts, received 642 comments and netted 1.5 million page views.

Sharing her teaching adventure started with mustering the courage to write that very first post – something she admits she had plenty of doubts about. What if no one read it? What if people did read it and were critical? What if blogging takes too much time?

Still, at 5 a.m. on a school day, fresh out of the shower and hair wrapped in a towel, Magiera, chief program officer and Dynamic Learning Project lead for EdTechTeam, sat down on the foot of the bed in the dark and wrote her inaugural blog post. 

“I decided it’s now or never. It was one of those moments we all face when we’re going to take a big risk like skydiving or bungee jumping. I decided I was just going to close my eyes and jump,” Magiera said.

Because after urging from a mentor, Magiera realized that blogging was a great way to share what she was attempting in her classroom, an opportunity to get feedback, and the perfect way to do what she was encouraging students to do – reflect on her learning.  

Here are a few of her tips for sharing your teaching practice with blogging:

Jump in.

Magiera didn’t have a start date for her blog, nor did she have an exacting plan. What she did have was an adventure to share. Getting started at the beginning of your teaching journey is when you’ll have the most to say and when you’ll be experiencing the most growth. So sit down, write a post and publish it. Then write the next one.

Done is better than perfect.

Magiera admits it’s easy to overthink what you write and avoid hitting publish until it’s perfect. Take that approach and the entire exercise will become too cumbersome and you’ll never post. Instead, embrace making mistakes and model failing forward. Be brave about sharing what you’re trying in your classroom and be earnest in your reflection. That will be enough for those who read your words.

Honor your experiences.

You may hink that your voice isn’t big enough or that you don’t qualify as an expert. Magiera assures you’re an expert to someone. Be authentic and you’ll receive authentic feedback – and likely a good dose of support to go with it.

ISTE members interested in gathering best practices for blogging and vlogging can join Magiera for the ISTE Professional Learning Series webinar “Sharing Your Untold Stories: Getting Started Blogging and Vlogging” on Nov. 1.

Participants will:

• Learn how to overcome self-doubt about sharing your voice.
• Get tips for blog ideas and content development.
• Find out how to create blogs that appeal to readers.
• Hear about getting started with vlogging.