Why am I blogging? What difference will it make? Should I be overly concerned about sharing my thoughts publicly?

I am blogging because it is part of the course I am taking called ETMOOC, but I had also dabbled in blogging because I want to be able to help High School Students navigate through the tough parts of life and if reaching out through social media will help I am choosing to be in.

I also want to help school counsellors find more ways that can reach and teach their students. A part of what we do as school counsellors is to assist students through psycho educational means.

Yalom (1995) expressed many therapeutic factors when it came to psycho educational groups and I believe a few of these could apply to assisting students through social media. 

The most important to me is the instillation of hope. If anything I say or do is able to instill hope in the heart of even one student then it is worth it.

If something I say about school counselling is able to help a school counsellor and as a result a child is helped then blogging is worth it.

What skills do I need to be able to do this? What skills will they need to help them?

I believe my 33 years in education will help me, my training in counselling and psychology should help me, but this is a new way of helping for me, so I have so much to learn.

THINK BEFORE I POST 

I want students to do this and so must I. Taking time to reflect on what it is I really want to do and say.

Lesson 1: Write my blog posts in word first. Read them over. Even when posted read them over and edit again and again if necessary. 

BE DIGITALLY RESPONSIBLE

Lesson 2: Make sure I am responsible in what I put out on line. Before I posted I asked my daughter if she would be OK with what I wrote and if it was OK to post a picture of her. She was OK with it. So I posted.

Being digitally responsible and demonstrating digital citizenship. As I navigate through all the tweets and connections, I recognize that I will learn so many new things. In doing so I hope to pass some of these learning’s onto our students. They already know I am taking this course.

BE A LEADER

Lesson 3: Model what it is that I would expect students to do as digital citizens. However, like them I am sure I will make some mistakes along the way and isn’t that how we often learn the most important lessons in life by making mistakes.

FAILING DOES NOT MAKE A FAILURE

Lesson 4: Mistakes will happen. I will fail at my attempts to do some things and I will be successful at others. Today, I had many failures in attempting to try a new skill. I felt like giving up, but I did not. I asked for help and gratefully received the help I needed. 

DON’T GIVE UP

Lesson 5: Even when the going gets tough, I will ask for help and not be embarrassed that I do not know something.  I will not give up even though there will be days or moments when I feel like it.

TRUST THE PROCESS 

Lesson 6:This has become my mantra for this course. I will work through my fears and anxieties and know that all will work out in the end.

SELF REFLECTION is HELPFUL

How is that for self- reflection? I have done my ETMOOC homework. I have commented on others blogs. I am posting blogs and learning about new tools and strategies.

I guess when all is said and done I love learning, especially when I am not being graded. I have to tell you there is so much freedom in that. It certainly for me makes me want to learn and keep learning especially when it is something I am interested in.

STAY FOCUSED

Not easy for me with this crazy amount of information. Below I put together a wordle using words from this blog post and they came out in the shape of a foot. I know I need to keep one foot in front of the other and FOCUS.

A word that pops out in the wordle is HELP. Most importantly in all of this I need to reach out. 

I need to

• HELP myself
• Ask for HELP
• HELP others

Thanks ETMOOC for letting me reflect and get excited about learning new things. I look forward to week 2.