Week #4 – 31 Day Blogging Challenge

I lost Week #3 thanks to semester changeover, report cards and the Knowschools conference, so, as a result, Day 14 reflections happened in Week #4. Hopefully I’ll get my challenge momentum back soon!

Day 14 – Analyze Your Blog’s Competition – First, I don’t think of other bloggers as competitors, but as colleagues, mentors, fellow educators, and inspiration. Darren Rowse, creator of the 31 Days to Building a Better Blog, does mention that he uses “the word ‘competition’ hesitantly”. The point of Day 14 is to find and read other blogs with a similar purpose to your own and then analyze them to learn what’s good/not so good and apply that learning to improve your blog. Sounds like a crit to me…

My ‘competitors’ make up my Blogroll shown at the right under my tags. I do read more than the fifteen listed there so I plan to list the others on a separate page entitled “Blogs I Read“, which is hidden under the Edublogs ad in the top right corner. This page includes a special list of blogs belonging to those participating in the 31 Day Challenge and I think I’ll be moving a few of those into my Blogroll soon.

After analyzing my ‘competition’, I have a better understanding of why I read them – not really the point of Day 14, but I enjoy digression, especially in learning. I read those bloggers because I like their voice, I value their opinions and I like the way that they make me think about teaching and learning. I respect them as educators.

In terms of using what I learned from Day 14 to find my own niche, I think my blog fits in nicely with those created for professional reflection, professional dialogue and professional growth. Everybody’s different though, and my perspective as a teacher is a little unusual due to a special combination of teaching jobs in my teaching journey thus far, so I hope that my voice adds its own flavour to the cyberspace conversations.

Imagery: look into the past by mattsabo17 on Flickr.com

2 thoughts on “Week #4 – 31 Day Blogging Challenge

  1. Hi Errin. I agree with you about not seeing other bloggers as competitors. All of the blogs I read offer slightly different perspectives that make me reflect on my teaching and my learning journey. I really enjoy reading your blog – I always find something interesting to think about.

  2. Thanks Pam! I wonder if there are any teachers who blog ‘competitively’ for profit. It doesn’t seem to fit, does it? There are some educators who are consultants, and some who give keynotes, workshops, etc, that have a blog to help promote their work. For the most part, though, I think educators blog to learn, not to make a profit.

Leave a Reply to Pam Thompson Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *