About me – Aistear Muinteoir

Hi to all my new followers!

In light of recent posts by other bloggers (not just teacher bloggers) regarding keyboard warriors I have decided to add this blog post to my page.

I’m Aistear Muinteoir. I have been teaching for a number of years and have worked with infants and 3rd to 6th Class. I have also completed research in play-based learning in infant classes. I will be teaching 5th & 6th again this year.

I set up this blog last year with the encouragement of friends and some of my colleagues. I had finished my research and my M. Ed. and was moving from Infants to Senior Classes and to be honest I had put so much work into Aistear I couldn’t let it go :)! My main intention for this blog was to highlight the importance of play based learning and Aistear and offer some insights into how I used Aistear in my classroom when I was in Infants.

The majority of my posts are about what has worked well for me in my classroom. In my school we had a WSE while I was in the infant classes and I received good feedback about my classroom set up and strategies I had in place. While my strategies might work for some I understand they are not ideal in every situation and similarly not all inspectors are the same. While our cigire liked some strategies in my room others may not have the same opinion. My opinions and posts are not steadfast rules and are only suggestions to maybe help my followers in their own classes.

I was so enthusiastic with my blog last Summer and really tried to work to keep it updated while I also battled to stay on top of work in the Senior Classes. But I was also aware of the negativity that surrounded all bloggers really. I tried to ignore it and keep doing what I was doing but at times it was hard.

Over the course of the year I was contacted to review products which I will happily do with my class, I received some products but was not paid to feature them on my blog. I explained to my class that we were lucky to get the opportunity to try these products and review them and the review posts that followed were a mixture of both my views and the views of my class. I felt this was a fairer way to review the products.

I have featured other shops too on my posts but these are not sponsored or an add in any form. Anyone that knows me will know that I always look for bargains for resources/stationery/necessary teacher supplies. While previously I shared them with some of my friends and colleagues now I add them to my page. It saves endless messages to my colleagues!

I want to thank everyone for their support over the last 12 months. I have been overwhelmed by the response to my page and to the lovely comments. I will continue to work as Aistear Muinteoir this year but will try include more posts on Senior Classes for new followers.

I think it’s important to focus on the positive side of teachers blogging – sharing and valuing good practice! While there may be some negativity towards bloggers I hope to focus on the positive this year. I hope you will too.

A.M.

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