Before this course, I had recently began exploring blogs and participating as an audience member.  I “fell” into reading one particular blog post because a friend posted the link on her Facebook page. From that day forward, I followed this blog, reading on a regular basis simply because of the difficult journey the blogger was sharing with the world. I admired her bravery. Now, as I explore blogs and the act of blogging with a frame of literacy my perspective and impressions have heightened.

Wikipedia defines blogs (weblog) as:

·         Blogging is about reading and writing
·         Literacy is about reading and writing
·         Blogging is about literacy
Blogs are about communicating by observing your experience, reflect on it and write about it. Others read your reflection, respond from their perspective by commenting or writing their own blog.

I currently follow a blog written by a mother, and sometimes father, who lost their child to SIDs at four months of age and a blog by our former school nurse blogging about her daughters who have Autism.  With these particular blogs, the writers are open and honest while blogging a difficult journey.  What I noticed with these particular blogs were, as they continued, the writers turned their challenges into educating others about SIDs and Autism.  I taught in a second grade inclusion classroom up to this school year.  Every year I have several students who are on the Autism spectrum. I cannot even begin to explain how much I learned through them, and I am a better teacher because of my students. I thought I really had learned all there was to learn with regard to supporting students on the spectrum until I read Julie’s blog.  And I knew one child on the spectrum is one child on the spectrum.  Julie shared that she always had to prepare her one daughter whenever she would leave even for a simply errand. She was talking to her daughter, going over what time would be like when she was gone and what to expect.  Julie told her daughter to look at her and give her eye contact so that she knew she was listening. Her daughter, who was 13 at the time said, “It hard for me to look at you and listen. I am listening and I do better when I don’t look at you.” That was a HUGE wow moment for me, because I reflected back on all the times I had my students work on making eye contact.  You better believe I changed how I approach my students with regard to eye contact.

In my continued search of interesting blogs, I found one titled What would Emma Pillsbury wear? (All Glee fans will know who this is. This blog is dedicated to the fashion of this character. It was super fun. I have added it to my favorites.) I found one I like about fitness titled Fit Bottomed Girls and my FAVORITE was written by a nine year girl from Scotland title Never Seconds. I found her blog while searching organic living and eating. (http://neverseconds.blogspot.com) Her blog is completely devoted to blogging about her school cafeteria and what they serve. She has had over 2 million hits since the inception of her blog! What is most interesting is she was told she had to stop photographing the school food and blogging about it. Once word got out that she was told, by school officials, she no longer could write about her school food, she went viral and was on and off in one day. In addition to her blogging about her own experiences, she posts reader’s contributions about what they eat in school. Most importantly, she has turned her blog into a fundraising effort for Mary’s Meals in Africa. She has raised enough money to purchase an entire kitchen for this program, which was her goal, along with 8500 meals to date. I was in complete AWE of what a nine year has done in such a short amount of time; all within a blog! This is a must read!

           In closing, I have found blogs to serve many purposes. They can be interactive, educational and help bring awareness to a cause. They can be practical and offer applicable ideas such as teaching sites. I also find they serve for one’s healing and growth through any experiences; painful or happy. I believe they can also help people with accountability in their own personal goals in life. Blogs are a form of communication that brings communities of people together to learn from each other through commentary and sharing of one’s ideas.