Firstly the most practical reason why I have chosen to start this blog is because I am finally grasping the concept that I need to move into a more digital age with my photo keeping. Ever since me and a friend both bought photo albums in a winter sale back in 2005, I have kept a photo album. Each month I’d spend time collating, printing and crafting pictures of my life into the pages of these albums. Don’t get me wrong, these are brilliant keep-sakes and I look back on each of them reminiscing on fond memories, however they are taking up far too much space, printing is very expensive and not exactly eco-friendly and I’ve been told by fellow colleagues that I must embrace the digital age. If I’m able to continue to build on my photo keepsakes online whilst building new ICT skills through navigating and creating a blog, this seems like my first and most practical positive reason to do this.

My second reason for writing a blog is for writing in general. I feel like I would benefit from building my writing skills. Like many people I have dyslexia and dyspraxia and therefore find writing (among other aspects of life) a challenge. I struggle mostly with  re-calling words that need to be used in both writing and in conversation. Making sense of texts and writing in a clear and coherent way  is also tricky for me. This does not mean that I do not understand what I am reading or that I cannot hold my own thoughts on things, it simply means that I find elements in the process involved in literacy skills a little more challenging.  I’ve found over the years that being given the opportunities to write allows me a chance to use my persevering skills to comprehend through reading, think about what I have learnt and order this into a coherent report or argument. These opportunities were given through school, university and when doing my teacher training. I have been teaching Early Years now for 3 years and although my brain gets used for report writing, much of this is repetitive writing and doesn’t necessarily stretch me. A blog is something I haven’t tried before, it’s something new and hopefully will be at times challenging. I’m hoping it will give me back an opportunity to write for improvement of writing.

Lastly I’m writing this blog because reading other people’s blogs inspire me. I see life as one giant learning experience and the passing on of knowledge and experiences is important for us to learn. I’m inspired by others who blog and enjoy reading and learning from their posts so why not impart knowledge and experience of what I have achieved with others. Whether that is a curious thought-provoking encounter in a new and exciting environment, practical and logistical information or even an exhausting, overly challenging  or ‘ I’d rather forget about that’ kind of experience.

If I achieve snippets from each of these reasons for writing this blog then I will have achieved.