Ben Gipin's "A Colorful Principal": A Blog Fit for a King...Or Rather a Principal

When sorting through the variety of Edublogs on the interwebs, I ended up choosing to write about Ben Gilpin’s blog for a few different reasons. The first being that his blog is very easy to navigate and sleek in that is very simple to look at. Many of the blogs that I paroozed that won blogging awards or were followed by thousands were overly flashy and had so many different links to other blogs or twitter, pictures, and other visual stimulation that I could not concentrate on its content. Another thing that caught my attention about this particular blog was that a principal was behind it. Thus far from what I have seen in the edublog realm has mostly been written and moderated by practicing school teachers.  Within each of his blog posts, Ben writes on a pretty general education topics and his writing often is sprinkled with very motivational concepts and quotes. For example, one of his most recent blog posts he writes down a variety of “what if” questions that ranged from what if “gifted students had the same supports as struggling students” and then “what if people didn’t gossip,” so his blog posts don’t strictly provide tips for teachers or discuss the pedagogical practices that research has shown to be effective. Instead, Ben’s personality shines through each post and his blog acts as place where he can both reflect on some of his personal thoughts about education, give his students, faculty, parents of students and community members a chance to get know him and remind those involved with the school in which he is charge of a glimpse of some of the current events and weekly schedule.

            

Overall I found Ben’s blog to interesting in that he used it in a unique way that seems often overlooked; many students and teachers do not get the chance to interact with the school principal, even though his level of involvement effects how both parents and students view the school and the education that occurs there. Ben’s blog made me think about how I may use my blog as a means of making connections with my school community. At the end of each of his posts, Ben shares links to a videos that he has been into for that week. These videos encompass all of his interests and many are put there because they are comical and brighten his day. The videos that Ben post allow his readers to see how Ben thinks and brighten the reader’s day as well. I like the idea of having a space both positive and informative where people of the school community can be informed of what is going on and of who has power when it comes to the education of students within that community. I wrote a comment on Ben’s “What if..” post where I wrote “What if all school principals had an accessible blog?” and described how awesome I think his blog, and the idea of a principal having a blog is.