Mission #1: The Power of The Blog

Wow, wow, wow, wow, wow. Sam Shah here, and I’m beyond floored by how many people are interested in participating in Exploring the MTBoS. Floored, and overjoyed.

[this was a picture from my birthday, but I pretty much look like this all the time]

I honestly thought we’d find a few people out there who were interested in this beautiful, amazing group of math teachers — and BAM! There are a zillion of you, from all over, teaching all sorts of different things, all with differing experiences with blogs and twitter. I can’t tell you how much my heart swelled when I was reading through all the comments of people who signed up. I’m in heaven.

Now let’s see if we can’t make this worthwhile for you.

Almost all of you have read a few math teacher blogs — and that’s what brought you here. So we thought we’d center the first week around blogging… Each week a different one of us (Sam Shah, Tina Cardone, Justin Lanier, and Julie Reulbach) are going to be leading up a mission. This week (obviously) is my week.

So let’s go! Let’s start at the very beginning, a very good place to start.

For this Explore the MathTwitterBlogosphere program, you’re going to be doing a bunch of different challenges. Each of them is going to end with you doing a little reflection related to what you did. Thus, it’s important (at least for these few weeks) to have a blog to write on. Although we are going to be asking you to keep a blog for these 8 weeks, we are not going to be making you continue it. If you know me, you know that my current mantra about this online community is “There’s no right way to participate in this weird disjointed passionate community. Do what moves you. Do what makes sense for you.”

Part of this experience going outside of your comfort zone and exploring various things to see if any of them will prove useful for you. So try out keeping and writing in this blog for the next few weeks and see how it goes. If it turns out you find it useful and want to continue posting regularly, great. If not, that’s just as great. You have to do what’s useful for you! That being said…

We have two different missions for you, depending on if you have a blog or if you don’t.

If you don’t have a blog, look for the section of this post titled “ACK! I need a blog! Stat!” and only read that. Just skip to that part. Like now! GO!

If you already have a blog, look immediately below to find the section titled “I have a blog… Now what, Mister?!” 

I have a blog… Now what, Mister?!

Your mission is threefold.

1. You are going to write a blogpost on one of the following two prompts.

• What is one of your favorite open-ended/rich problems?  How do you use it in your classroom? (If you have a problem you have been wanting to try, but haven’t had the courage or opportunity to try it out yet, write about how you would or will use the problem in your classroom.)

• What is one thing that happens in your classroom that makes it distinctly yours? It can be something you do that is unique in your school… It can be something more amorphous… However you want to interpret the question! Whatever!

Just pick one prompt and post about it!

<rant> Now some part of you might be thinking: my rich problem isn’t rich enough! I’m embarrassed by it! I am new to teaching — so my classroom isn’t really distinctly mine yet. So I don’t have a perfect answer to the prompts! If that happens to you, just write about something similar. But I said this last year when getting people to write their first post: If you feel like you aren’t awesome at teaching, welcome to the club. If you feel constantly like everything else you see out there is better, welcome to the club. So if you’re new to teaching and have material that you’re proud of it, post it! We’re all starting this at different points, but the one thing I’ve learned is that I can steal ideas or be inspired or commiserate with first year teachers as easily as a veteran teacher. So try not to be self-conscious and obsessive. We’re all here to reflect on what we do, and to learn from each other. We’re not trying to be the best and we’re not out to impress each other. We’re out to get better. No one in the mathtwitterblogosphere is judging you, but yourself. So if you’re a sucky writer, own it and don’t worry about not being Tolstoy. If you feel like what you want to write has already been said on a lot of other places, write it anyway. This is you, for you, by you. Phew. </rant> 

2. You are going to write a comment on this blogpost. Your comment will say:

Your name (or pseudonym, if you’re using one)
Your Twitter handle (if you have one)
Your blog name
The title of your post
The URL of your post
One (or two) sentences from your post to capture a reader’s interest

Example:
My name is Sam Shah (@samjshah) and I’m blogging at _Continuous Everywhere But Differentiable Nowhere_. The title of my blogpost is “Senior Letters 2012” (http://samjshah.com/2012/05/31/senior-letter-2012/).

To whet your appetite: “Each year at the end of the school year, I say goodbye to my seniors. And each year, I’ve written a letter to the seniors with some imparting thoughts as they go off in the world.”

3. Once you’ve posted your comment advertising your blogpost, look at the three previous comments (the ones above yours). Read the posts of these three people and write a comment each of their blogs! If you are one of those eager beavers who are the first three to post, just find three comments as people begin to post!

Seriously, that’s it for this week for you! Trust us — we’re going to have more in the coming weeks. But we’re starting with the basics!

ACK! I need a blog! Stat!

You made it here! Phew! Now for your mission. Your mission has a few parts… but don’t be daunted…

1. Come up with a blog title. It can be funny, it can be serious, it can make no sense, whatever. However, my one admonition: don’t spend more than 10 minutes coming up with this blog title. The more you struggle to choose it, the more annoying it is going to be, and I’m afraid you’re going to use this hassle of coming up with a blog title to be enough to stop you from blogging. This cannot happen. Not on my watch! So 10 minutes is all you have.

2. Start a blog. If you have no idea how to do this, go to my favorite blogging site wordpress.com and get a blog! Here’s an awesome two minute video showing the process.

The link is here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9N0zXEwtjCI

3. Write a short blogpost on one of the following prompts. Yup, you’re already ready to go. See how easy setting up a blog was? EASY!:

• Who are you? Introduce yourself to the MathTwitterBlogosphere! How’d you get into teaching? What do you like most about your job?

• What is one of your favorite open-ended/rich problems?  How do you use it in your classroom? (If you have a problem you have been wanting to try, but haven’t had the courage or opportunity to try it out yet, write about how you would or will use the problem in your classroom.)

• What is one thing that happens in your classroom that makes it distinctly yours? It can be something you do that is unique in your school… It can be something more amorphous… However you want to interpret the question! Whatever!
• What brought you to the MTBoS? What do you hope to get out of participating in the #MTBoS?

I suppose it can be a long blogpost too. Whatever floats your boat. If you’re adventurous, bonus points (okay, there aren’t really points) and twenty unicorn rainbows (there are real, however!) if you include an image or a video or a link.

<rant> Now some part of you might be thinking: my rich problem isn’t rich enough! I’m embarrassed by it! I am new to teaching — so my classroom isn’t really distinctly mine yet. So I don’t have a perfect answer to the prompts! If that happens to you, just write about something similar. But I said this last year when getting people to write their first post: If you feel like you aren’t awesome at teaching, welcome to the club. If you feel constantly like everything else you see out there is better, welcome to the club. So if you’re new to teaching and have material that you’re proud of it, post it! We’re all starting this at different points, but the one thing I’ve learned is that I can steal ideas or be inspired or commiserate with first year teachers as easily as a veteran teacher. So try not to be self-conscious and obsessive. We’re all here to reflect on what we do, and to learn from each other. We’re not trying to be the best and we’re not out to impress each other. We’re out to get better. No one in the mathtwitterblogosphere is judging you, but yourself. So if you’re a sucky writer, own it and don’t worry about not being Tolstoy. If you feel like what you want to write has already been said on a lot of other places, write it anyway. This is you, for you, by you. Phew. </rant>

4. You are going to write a comment on this blogpost. Your comment will say:

Your name (or pseudonym, if you’re using one)
Your Twitter handle (if you have one)
Your blog name
The title of your post
The URL of your post
One (or two) sentences from your post to capture a reader’s interest

Example:
My name is Sam Shah (@samjshah) and I’m blogging at _Continuous Everywhere But Differentiable Nowhere_. The title of my blogpost is “Senior Letters 2012” (http://samjshah.com/2012/05/31/senior-letter-2012/).

To whet your appetite: “Each year at the end of the school year, I say goodbye to my seniors. And each year, I’ve written a letter to the seniors with some imparting thoughts as they go off in the world.”

5. Once you’ve posted your comment advertising your blogpost, look at the three previous comments (the ones above yours). Read the posts of these three people and write a comment each of their blogs! If you are one of those eager beavers who are the first three to post, just find three comments as people begin to post!

We know this is a lot, asking you: hey, start a blog. But you did it! And you’re going to try it out! And for that, we are proud mama and papa bears! You are awesomesauce!

** Also, please be sure to comment on other bloggers posts on THEIR blogs instead of here.  Everyone loves getting comments on their blogs!