Fellow Empire State rep Kate Nowak requested answers to the following in her post: Tell Me Why You Blog.

1. What hooked you on reading the blogs? Was it a particular post or person? Was it an initiative by the nice MTBoS folks? A colleague in your building got you into it? Desperation?

I got hooked on reading math blogs because I was interested in becoming a better teacher and I wasn’t finding resources in other places to satisfy this desire. Math blogs put me in touch with teachers willing to try new things out and succeed, or more importantly, fail in public.

2. What keeps you coming back? What’s the biggest thing you get out of reading and/or commenting?

Confession: I don’t comment much on blogs. Maybe I use twitter as a sounding board for my opinions? Not sure why.

I keep coming back because I keep getting good stuff. The economics of this system are tough, if you people in the #mtbos stop producing good stuff, then I’m out. Thankfully, the stuff coming out has only been getting better and more interesting.

3. If you write, why do you write? What’s the biggest thing you get out of it?

Mostly I write for myself. I process things better after writing about them. This is from a guy who hates to write (or reflect). I record things on my blog first for myself; second for others. If other people find use in my blog, fantastic. But I’d still have some version of it if it were only my Mom reading it (hi Mom!).
It’s great that people find use for things I’ve posted. Just this morning I woke up to find 15+ responses on twitter talking about a post that I put up 3 years ago. Soooo cool. Just awesome. And that there’s that stupid Oreo thing. That must count for something.

4. If you chose to enter a room where I was going to talk about blogging for an hour (or however long you could stand it), what would you hope to be hearing from me? MTBoS cheerleading and/or tourism? How-to’s? Stories?

Dunno. Give me personal stories. I’m no help here.