Most Read Blog Posts of 2017

Blogging is a great way to reflect and share my learning about education, self-regulation and other topics. Putting my ideas out there into the world wide web is a bit unnerving - will anyone read this? Will anyone respond? Will my thinking resonate with someone? Will it cause them to rethink or reflect on their own practice?

My main goal is not to generate a huge readership for the blog. I like to use writing as a way to think my way through things and decided why not share my wonderings and writings.  But it is gratifying to see the readership numbers grow when a post really resonates for some reason. So thank you to everyone who took a moment to read my blog posts and especially to those who responded.

My top three most-read posts for 2017 were:


3. Kindergarten Graduation Alternatives  It's interesting to me that this post was so widely read when it probably has a very narrow audience of kindergarten teachers and ECEs.  I shared several research articles about why kindergarten graduation is not developmentally appropriate and provided a range of alternatives that are more child-friendly. I'm not saying don't celebrate the end of the school year, but let's find a way to do it that is appropriate for five year olds.
Feedback on this post was divided.  Some people were so thankful to have research and ideas to share with their colleagues and administrators to help them in their quest to move on from kindergarten graduation ceremonies.  And others shared their belief that kindergarten graduation is something that parents and administrators expect and enjoy. That conversation took place as responses to my post of this blog on Facebook in the Ontario Kindergarten Teachers group so it wasn't captured on the blog.

2. Self-regulation: Not just for kids So much of what I read about self-regulation talks about how teachers and parents can help to teach students/children how to use self-regulation.  But what I've found is that learning more about self-regulation has changed my own behaviour and my understanding of those days when my self-control seems to have deserted me.  In this post, I shared an example of how my husband lent me his calm when I was too overwhelmed by stressors during a very long trip.  I had so many responses to this post that I wrote a follow-up post that generated just as much traffic.  If I combined the two posts, they would be my most read topic.

And the most read post of 2017 on the Opening Doors for Learning blog:
1. ETFO Kindergarten Conference - April 2017. I used Storify to summarize and share two days of fantastic learning at the ETFO Kindergarten Conference in Niagara Falls. I was sad when I got an email just a few weeks ago, letting me know that Storify is no longer going to be available after the May 2018.    Time to find a new strategy. What are you going to be using instead of Storify in the future?

Happy 2018 to everyone!  Thanks again for reading these posts, responding, sharing, retweeting and letting me know that you're out there!

Image from PRpeople.blog