As discussed in iEducator 21st Century Digital Learning Corps: Program Design and Reflection (part one of the series), iEds were asked to contribute regularly to publicly available blogs (the focus of part two of this series).
The purpose of the blogs was threefold. First, it served as a place for iEds to respond to prompts and reflect on what they were learning from week to week. Recognizing the importance of reflecting on one’s learning, the instructional team felt it was important that iEds be encouraged to do this regularly. Second, the blogs served as a public-facing space where iEds could build an online presence, a place where they could interact with one another and have thoughtful discussions about their teaching. Third and finally, the blogs served as spaces to record the iEds’ growth over the course of their teaching with Michigan Virtual. They will be able to look back at their blog posts and see how their thinking and practice changed as they gained experience and confidence in the online classroom (DeBruler, 2016). Blogs were selected as the unit of analysis as they presented an archive of data to be analyzed and, through the comments sections, afforded communication and connection between iEds and administrators.
