Every Journey Begins with a Single Step

The first step.  The first post.
This must be what my students feel like when I give them that blank composition notebook the first week of school and explain it's their Writer's Notebook.  I get a variety of responses including (but not limited to) the blank "deer in headlights" stare, excitement followed by flipping through the blank pages, and then there's always a few with the "sigh of despair" at the realization I'm going to ask them to write.  I ask them, what's the most challenging part of writing?  What makes you "sigh with despair?"  The most common answer:  Getting started.  Writing that first sentence, or blog post, just taking that first, single step to begin the journey.

A few years ago I had the privilege of participating in the CIESC Teacher Leadership Academy, an incredible two-year professional development program.  The motto of TLA recently came to mind as I began hoarding my blog roll of RSS feeds in Google Reader and categorizing my browser bookmarks into education related folders.

"The responsibility of knowing is sharing."

It's time to begin my journey of sharing with you.  All of you educators, teachers, and readers out there who are also on a journey to inspire, collaborate, and are enthusiastic about sharing your knowledge.

I must give credit where credit is due and thank Shelly Terrell of Teacher Reboot Camp for being my inspiration to begin this blog.  Check out her post What will you learn this summer?  26 Professional Development Resources and you may find some sources for inspiration too.  I also recommend downloading a copy of Shelly's free The 30 Goals Challenge e-book.  The narratives and challenges are thought provoking both personally and professionally.  This post can be considered my response to the Goal #1 challenge!

This is going to be quite an adventure.