The idea evolved from a meeting initiated by our 7th Grade English teacher, Jamie Langley in January. She wanted to start a PLC around technology with a variety of teacher leaders on campus. We are a set of curious teachers always wanting to expand our own knowledge. For most of us, it was our first time using a blog.

"We believe that these emergent technologies hold great promise and challenges for transforming education research and practice. Amid the hype and speculation, education researchers need to keep educational aims in the foreground yet remain transparently curious about manifestations of learning beyond what we currently know." (Greenhow, Robelia & Hughes, 2009, p. 256)

As educators, much of we do is research.

"Today being connected means being plugged in, networked, or virtually engaged in order to learn and grow personally and professionally." (Wong, 2013, p. 33)

The result was 3 middle school and high school English/Publication teachers, 2 middle school science teachers and a Social Studies teachers deciding to collaborate on a blog.

"If the question is “to blog or not to blog” then by all means an educator should blog. Blogging is one of the most important routines a connected educator can practice." (Wong, 2013, p.33)

We established a schedule where each teacher would post every other week.

The results were 15 posts (as opposed to the goal of around 30).

So, inspired by our readings, I decided to ask the teachers what barriers they encountered when creating content for the blog.

All teachers interviewed responded that time was a challenge.

3 of 4 teachers polled said participating in the blog impacted their professional knowledge.

They were inspired by one another and benefited from their own reflection.

We hope those who read were inspired as well.

The top viewed post was Pam's post, "What does the A Stand for Anyway?" with 40 total views.
http://projectstarblog.com/2014/04/03/what-does-the-a-stand-for-anyway/

Our readers spanned six countries. I consider this to be a great success.

Participate! Connect! Network!

In order to increase participation in the blog and develop an audience we used social networking. We owe much of our audience reach to sharing through facebook and twitter.

Challenge 1: There was a huge learning curve. I believe observing my tweets about the blog illustrate how I changed my strategy to increase our "reach."
Please follow this link to see how Twitter was used to share the blog andhow my changes affected response to the tweets. Hit the expand button under each tweet to see more:
https://twitter.com/search?q=%23projectstarblog&src=typd&f=realtime

Challenge 2: Choose a blog post from www.projectstarblog.com to review. Please either share (can be social networking or emailing to someone) or comment (or both!).

As you complete the challenge, consider: How can teachers build on learners’ everyday experiences in Web 2.0–enabled contexts to engage them better in content area learning and prepare them for the future? How can teachers develop their professional knowledge through similar Web 2.0–enabled practices? (Greenhow, Robelia & Hughes, 2009, p. 250)

"Acting on what we are advocating...will equate to modifying some of our own pedagogical approaches — to letting go of tired practices, to exploring the potential of turn-around pedagogies, and to reaching out to classroom teachers and school library/media specialists whose motivations for engaging adolescents’ interests in Web 2.0 and social media are as strong as our own."
(Alvermann & Hutchins, 2012, p. 41)

Suggestions, areas of improvement, or comments appreciated!