Along my search of blogs to follow, I came across Lisa Nielsen and her blog The Innovative Educator. Lisa’s sense of humor and grit really pulled me into her posts and I found her material very useful and well-written. Her “About Me” page shows that she is not afraid of people seeing who she really is, and she doesn’t try to sugarcoat anything. Lisa links her page back to many other blogs, which shows just how much networking benefits educators and students. Her most recent post, Why Innovative Educators Should Look Down upon ‘Look Up’, truly sets the town as to how her blog will read. This video by Gary Turk went viral recently, not just among education blogs, but Facebook and Twitter as well. The video’s message is that social media is making children feel lonely. Lisa shuts Gary down by saying that people like him “simply don’t appreciate the vast opportunities and connections afforded to social media savvy students.” My favorite point that Lisa makes is “The Gary Turks of the world don’t understand the value of having friends and followers whose minds may have connected even though they have not shared the same physical space. They don’t get that you don’t need to see someone face-to-face to admire and share ideas.” I think those words right there are exactly why technology and social media has succeeded in the ways it has. People are able to communicate and share ideas from all over the world-an opportunity that never existed in recent years past.
Lisa’s writing is so useful because it is clear and easy to read, all the while being extremely interesting. Although she uses mostly text, it is simply put and right to the point. She frequently creates posts titled “The hottest posts everyone’s reading” where she lists her most viewed posts all in one place. She not only posts her own opinions on various topics, but she posts useful tips and tutorials for educators to use in their own classrooms.
I know I have found Lisa’s blog inspiring and helpful and I think you will too! Make sure to check it out. I will definitely be bookmarking this blog and using it on my journey of becoming an educator myself.
Morgan Graves 