Teacher Blogs: The Next Generation of Collaboration

[ABSTRACT ONLY; NO FULL TEXT] Establishing and maintaining a professional teacher blog enables teachers to publish, reflect, share, collaborate, and enrich their professional presence. While publishing has long been the standard for university professors, secondary teachers do not have the same expectations placed upon them. Primarily, this is due to time constraints, but the result is that secondary teachers do not always remain current in their field. To this point, a weekly writing practice can enable teachers to stay engaged and relevant in their particular field of study in regards to pedagogy and current research. Blogging enables teachers to understand writing for a purpose and for an audience, which increases credibility when insisting on the same from students. Since reflection is one of the most important aspects of improving one's teaching practice, the blog seems like an essential tool for every teacher. Finally, in an environment of questionable evaluation procedures for teachers, a teacher blog enables the teacher to highlight successes in the classroom and demonstrate his/her teaching pedagogy instead of being limited to one or two observations a year. I plan to utilize my teacher blog in a number of ways: Create a dialogue for secondary Special Day Class teachers about issues that aren't addressed anywhere else. Share and reflect on teaching practices. Read and write about current research in special education. Maintain a focus on potential interventions for both reading and writing at the secondary level. Lastly, increase my professional online presence.