How Educational Leaders Might Use Blogs

Before I started this action research course, I was very ignorant on what a blog really is. I always knew it was a way for a person to write down their ideas. After setting up my blog and doing my reading, I now feel that a blog is extremely valuable to an educational leader in a lot of ways. It allows a leader to write down their thoughts and feelings about virtually anything and everything so they can refer to it later. It can be used for self reflection. It can be used to document the results of various activities that have been implemented. It can be used as a way to ask for help from others that might be facing similar experiences or that have more experience in that area. It can be used as a way to communicate with followers on various important matters and give them the ability to provide feedback in a different manner than e-mail. A blog is more interactive and has many more possibilities. I look forward to having a different avenue with which to keep track of my thoughts than just pen and paper. I always struggle with remembering things that I have thought of that I need to do and this will now allow me a way to write down those things before I forget them.

What I Have Learned About Action Research

Action research is a phrase that I definitely had pegged wrong in the beginning. I really thought that it was actually doing research on a topic that I did not know much about. After reading my text for the class and completing the discussion and assignment, I now realize that action research is really looking at your current situation and evaluating the success of the things that you are already doing. It is self-reflection. It is analysis of the job you are doing and the programs that are in place and seeing if you can do something different or better to make them more effective. We are always asking our kids to improve on various things. We, as educators, should do the same. Action research allows us to take a topic or area of what we are doing and dissect it. We can look at our test scores and see if there are other ways to make them better. We can look at the programs we already have in place and see if we are headed in the right direction or if we need another approach. We can look at the effectiveness of how we are doing things and decide if we need different leadership so that the lines of communication can be opened up to get everyone on the same page. We can look at any areas where we are not meeting expectations and decide what new things we need to add to those areas to address those faults. Action research is such a broad topic that it involves almost anything. There are so many things that you can do so that you are constantly evaluating yourself. This is the best way for improvement in my opinion. Self-reflection can help a person realize a lot about themselves and the job they are doing. It helps you to stare your problems right in the face and figure out a way to get better. There are always going to be issues that we have to encounter as educators. Every time we face one of these issues, action research is appropriate so that we can best address that issue. It involves proper thought, communication, and action to ensure that we meet the needs of that issue the best that we can. It doesn't mean that the way we decide to address the issue is the final way that it will ever be done. There is always room for tweaking the adjustments that we make. You have to be willing to improvise and adjust if what you are doing is not working. In my opinion, action research opens the lines of communication to where everyone can voice their opinion and get on the same page. A lot of the time, decisions are made and there is not a proper level of communication on why the changes are made. Action research gives everyone the opportunity to voice their concerns or ideas. This allows people to take ownership over the situation and have a chance to be heard. It also allows the reasoning behind what we are doing to be heard by all. All of these things make us better. I now have a much better understanding of what action research really is and how useful and effective that strategy can be to making us better educators and administrators.