If my English teachers could see me now

I’m betting that I was every English teacher’s worst nightmare. Whenever there was a writing assignment, my hand would shoot up

How long does it have to be?

My understanding at the time would have been that I had to meet the minimum threshold for a successful writing piece and, at the same time, not put in any more work than was necessary to get the good marks.

A common response would have been the famous Abraham Lincoln quote, fully explained here…

‘How long should a man’s legs be?’ and 2 Other Lincoln Stories

Needless to say, I never wrote the great Canadian novel for all of the required writing that I had to do. I would prefer to do more mathematics problems if I had to do more school work. They were fun and you knew if you had done it correctly. Writing always seemed something difficult to nail down.

I do remember some words of wisdom for life – “Make sure that you write something every day”.

Who knew that that would turn into writing daily lesson plans or anecdotal comments on tests/assignments or report cards?

All of this changed when I discovered blogging. It indeed has become a daily writing habit and I use all sorts of things as inspiration for what I write. Except for Fridays and Sundays.

In my This Week in Ontario Edublogs post yesterday, Aviva Dunsiger included this message

thanks for connecting Ontario Edubloggers 

I wonder if my teachers ever thought that “Edubloggers” would ever become a word that people (OK, me) use regularly.

Keen proofreaders will note that I don’t typically include a link to this Livebinder.

It was a passion project, back in the day. I thought that it would be really handy to collect all the blogs written by Ontario Educators that I could find and categorize them. It was kind of neat; if I read a blog, I’d add it; if someone had a link to their blog in their Twitter profile, I’d add it, … I was actually in awe at how easily and quickly it grew.

Time and interests tend to fade and, sadly, most of the blogs that were linked to in the Livebinder are no longer active. It would be a waste of everyone’s time to post the link as a credible resource because it really has become dated. Links go to a blog that either goes missing and you get thrown up a 404 error or you’ll land on a blog that hasn’t been updated for a long time.

Instead, I’ve created a list on this blog that I call voicEd Radio Blog Roll. Basically, if I’ve used it as a resource for the Wednesday morning voicEd show, I’d add it here. It’s far more recent and relevant since links would have been active within the past four years. Even so, some of the links have gone the same way as the Livebinder referenced above.

That still doesn’t stop me for looking for new blogs. Every time I get a new follower on Twitter or find an Ontario Educator through some means, I check to see if they have a blog listed. It’s always a real treasure to find a new blogger.

I’ll end this post with a plea for help. If you know of an Ontario Edublogger that I don’t, please let me know. I’d really like to keep the list growing. There just has to be a whole lot of others out there who have found the joy of blogging.

And, you know the nice thing about blogging – I don’t have to ask anyone how long this post had to be. Blog posts are defined in length by just how much you have to say and I’m done for today.

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