Blogging, Reseaching or Reflecting?

Dan Meyer is fond of proclaiming that his blog has been one of the best sources of professional development for him. I have to agree that Google Reader is awesome and has contributed greatly to my willingness to go down the path to lighting rural Nicaraguan schools.

Here is the question that I have going into this. I have read a lot about teachers being reflective as a starting point for changing their teaching. I know that my friends who are the beat teachers are always asking questions about what they can do to get better. So here is the point. Is it blogging that make you a better teacher or is it just the reflection?

I have not been sleeping because I have been worried about physics. What path will the kids take? Will they even want to call Nicaragua and do an experiment with the students there? Will they engage the project like I envisioned or will it be something even greater? As I have finally been writing about some of my feelings I have been feeling better about it all. It is not that it is coming together better, I just feel better about it.

But I do not just feel better about it. New ideas are coming at a better pace. New things to tackle in class are coming to me quicker. It is all still messy, but it is messy in a clearer, sort of researched way.

So am I joining the teachers for whom blogging has helped them? More likely I am joining the teachers who are reflective researchers of what works in classrooms, and that is making order out of the chaos.