{"id":1716,"date":"2014-12-31T13:49:33","date_gmt":"2014-12-31T13:49:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/inspiredtoeducate.net\/inspiredtoeducate\/?p=1716"},"modified":"2014-12-31T15:12:07","modified_gmt":"2014-12-31T15:12:07","slug":"lessons-learned-from-blogging-in-2014","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/inspiredtoeducate.net\/inspiredtoeducate\/lessons-learned-from-blogging-in-2014\/","title":{"rendered":"Lessons Learned from Blogging in 2014"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<!-- Facebook Like Button v1.9.6 BEGIN [http:\/\/blog.bottomlessinc.com] -->\n<iframe src=\"http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/plugins\/like.php?href=http%3A%2F%2Finspiredtoeducate.net%2Finspiredtoeducate%2Flessons-learned-from-blogging-in-2014%2F&amp;layout=standard&amp;show_faces=false&amp;width=450&amp;action=like&amp;colorscheme=light\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"0\" allowTransparency=\"true\" style=\"border:none; overflow:hidden; width:450px; height: 30px; align: left; margin: 2px 0px 2px 0px\"><\/iframe>\n<!-- Facebook Like Button END -->\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/inspiredtoeducate.net\/inspiredtoeducate\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/sunrise__5_4_2013.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-821\" src=\"http:\/\/inspiredtoeducate.net\/inspiredtoeducate\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/sunrise__5_4_2013.jpg\" alt=\"Sunrise\" width=\"800\" height=\"531\" srcset=\"http:\/\/inspiredtoeducate.net\/inspiredtoeducate\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/sunrise__5_4_2013.jpg 800w, http:\/\/inspiredtoeducate.net\/inspiredtoeducate\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/sunrise__5_4_2013-300x199.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Good morning!\u00a0 I hope that you and your family had a Merry Christmas!\u00a0 I hope you have a happy new year!\u00a0 To our regular readers, I want to thank you for being a part of our community.\u00a0 In 2014, many of you actively contributed to building <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sparkmacon.com\" target=\"_blank\">SparkMacon MakerSpace<\/a>.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Our community is very thankful.\u00a0\u00a0 I\u2019m thankful to my friends and mentors who have guided me on my journey. \u00a0 In\u00a0the relationships and friendships I\u2019ve made in 2014, I feel very blessed.<\/p>\n<p>Like many, the eve of the New Year has put me in a reflective mood.\u00a0 I wanted to share my personal retrospective from blogging in 2014.\u00a0\u00a0 What did I learn from blogging in 2014?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Focus has been powerful:<\/strong>\u00a0 Over the two years that I have been blogging, I have challenged myself to focus on a smaller set of ideas.\u00a0\u00a0 Since I\u2019m a dad with young children and I\u2019m married to a college professor, I still feel a desire to serve community members who love teaching and learning.\u00a0 (both formal and grassroots experiences)\u00a0\u00a0 I, however, acknowledged that my best contributions and posts relate to helping people gain confidence in code.\u00a0\u00a0 From reviewing our analytics data, our readers really enjoy JavaScript programming.\u00a0\u00a0 It has been fun covering stories related to <a title=\"7 Reasons Why The Makers Movement Is Revolutionary\" href=\"http:\/\/inspiredtoeducate.net\/inspiredtoeducate\/?p=942\" target=\"_blank\">trends in \u201cmaker education.\u201d<\/a> \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0I appreciate the coaching I\u2019ve received on focusing on my strengths.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Love serving \u00a0local communities:<\/strong>\u00a0 Since I started the blog, I\u2019ve wanted to take ideas from the blog and put them into action.\u00a0\u00a0 A recurring theme from our posts involves learning by doing and learning by building.\u00a0\u00a0 I have really enjoyed serving my local Google Developer Group and helping our local makerspace design learning experiences for our makers. \u00a0\u00a0In 2014, InspiredToEducate.NET left the world of theory and ideation and entered the world of execution.\u00a0\u00a0 It has been fun to see ideas from this blog applied to learning experiences in our makerspace, my workplace, and my family.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Seeing the Makers movement go viral:<\/strong>\u00a0 \u00a0At <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sparkmacon.com\" target=\"_blank\">SparkMacon<\/a>, our community opened Middle Georgia\u2019s first makerspace.\u00a0\u00a0 Through discussions with the community, it has been fun to see the makers movement influencing a larger scope of learning experiences.\u00a0\u00a0 One of my friends who does home schooling has had lots of fun using \u201cinvent to learn\u201d strategies with his kids.\u00a0\u00a0 Some of our local science museums have started looking into implementing makerspace experiences.\u00a0\u00a0 During a Knight Foundation news challenge, there was a healthy discussion on ways local libraries can become makerspaces.\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0In 2015, it will be fun to see the impact of Maker education in our communities.\u00a0 We are looking forward to a mini maker faire that will be held in Macon Georgia.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Amazed by young people:<\/strong> It&#8217;s fun hearing stories of high school students teaching maker education classes. (see <a href=\"http:\/\/MakerKids.ca\">MakerKids.ca<\/a>) \u00a0Meeting young boys and girls who look forward to learning about electronics. \u00a0I didn&#8217;t learn stuff about electrical system until college. \u00a0 I&#8217;m meeting middle school kids who want to go beyond the basics of Arduino and bread boards. \u00a0Our friends at <a title=\"theClubhou.se: Growing an Awesome City through a Culture of Making\" href=\"http:\/\/inspiredtoeducate.net\/inspiredtoeducate\/?p=1440\">ClubHou.se Augusta<\/a> have a student who built his own 3D printer! \u00a0The potential of children is amazing to me.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Seymor Papert:<\/strong>\u00a0 On a personal level, I think doing the post on <a title=\"Impact of Seymour Papert on Learning, Engagement, and Creativity\" href=\"http:\/\/inspiredtoeducate.net\/inspiredtoeducate\/?p=1676\" target=\"_blank\">Seymor Papert <\/a>was important for me.\u00a0\u00a0 I\u2019m a computer scientist who loves machine learning.\u00a0\u00a0 I\u2019ve been asking myself \u201cwhy do I like writing a blog on education so much? \u00a0Education\u00a0is not your field!!\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 Firstly, I\u2019ve recently discovered that many of the great thinkers in computer science had a heart for using the computer as a means of growing the creative capacity and learning potential of children.\u00a0 It was cool to find out that this traditional existed.\u00a0 I don\u2019t feel so weird now.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Secondly, I have started to realize that my richest life experiences come when I learn about learning.\u00a0\u00a0 This will be a point of focus for me.<\/p>\n<p>We enjoy hearing from our readers.\u00a0 What are some of your celebrations from 2014? What was the most powerful idea or lesson you learned this year?<\/p>\n<p>Thanks again for being a part of our community at InspiredToEducate.NET .<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Top Blog Posts in 2014<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/inspiredtoeducate.net\/inspiredtoeducate\/?p=1319\" target=\"_blank\">Easy Data Visualization with Google Charts and JavaScript<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/inspiredtoeducate.net\/inspiredtoeducate\/?p=795\" target=\"_blank\">Learn to Build Your Own Conversational Bot using ChatScript<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/inspiredtoeducate.net\/inspiredtoeducate\/?p=1285\" target=\"_blank\">10 Free Resources for Learning JavaScript and HTML5<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/inspiredtoeducate.net\/inspiredtoeducate\/?p=1022\" target=\"_blank\">Using candy to teach DNA structure<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/inspiredtoeducate.net\/inspiredtoeducate\/?p=1093\" target=\"_blank\">Why Hate Science<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/inspiredtoeducate.net\/inspiredtoeducate\/?p=1349\" target=\"_blank\">Easy Recipes for Building Android Apps using MIT App Inventor<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/inspiredtoeducate.net\/inspiredtoeducate\/?p=1238\" target=\"_blank\">17 Fun Tools To Teach Kids To Code by @ChrisBetcher<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/inspiredtoeducate.net\/inspiredtoeducate\/?p=623\" target=\"_blank\">Benefits of Teaching Kids To Code That No One Is Talking About<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/inspiredtoeducate.net\/inspiredtoeducate\/?p=1342\" target=\"_blank\">Johnny Lee: Free or cheap Wii Remote hacks<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/inspiredtoeducate.net\/inspiredtoeducate\/?p=1557\" target=\"_blank\">3 Tutorials on 3D Modeling with TinkerCAD.COM<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n<!-- Facebook Like Button v1.9.6 BEGIN [http:\/\/blog.bottomlessinc.com] -->\n<iframe src=\"http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/plugins\/like.php?href=http%3A%2F%2Finspiredtoeducate.net%2Finspiredtoeducate%2Flessons-learned-from-blogging-in-2014%2F&amp;layout=standard&amp;show_faces=false&amp;width=450&amp;action=like&amp;colorscheme=light\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"0\" allowTransparency=\"true\" style=\"border:none; overflow:hidden; width:450px; height: 30px; align: left; margin: 2px 0px 2px 0px\"><\/iframe>\n<!-- Facebook Like Button END -->\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Good morning!\u00a0 I hope that you and your family had a Merry Christmas!\u00a0 I hope you have a happy new year!\u00a0 To our regular readers, I want to thank you for being a part of our community.\u00a0 In 2014, many of you actively contributed to building SparkMacon MakerSpace.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Our community [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[23,11,3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/inspiredtoeducate.net\/inspiredtoeducate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1716"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/inspiredtoeducate.net\/inspiredtoeducate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/inspiredtoeducate.net\/inspiredtoeducate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/inspiredtoeducate.net\/inspiredtoeducate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/inspiredtoeducate.net\/inspiredtoeducate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1716"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/inspiredtoeducate.net\/inspiredtoeducate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1716\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1720,"href":"http:\/\/inspiredtoeducate.net\/inspiredtoeducate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1716\/revisions\/1720"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/inspiredtoeducate.net\/inspiredtoeducate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1716"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/inspiredtoeducate.net\/inspiredtoeducate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1716"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/inspiredtoeducate.net\/inspiredtoeducate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1716"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}