Back on the Blog

I have to say that it felt kind of weird not blogging for a couple of weeks. I think that might be the longest break from the blog that I’ve taken in the almost five years that I’ve been doing this. It’s become such a big part of who I am these days that something definitely feels amiss when I’m not in here trying document my thinking and learning. I didn’t stop reading, however, and one of the posts that resonated a few days ago was Jon Udell writing about the literary form of a blog as a resume and an autobiography, one that is “narrating the course of a career, articulating its public agenda, writing its permanent record.” That feels like such a perfect description for what this has become, a place for my professional autobiography (with some personal sprinkled in) and in essence, my resume. And I would add to that my dissertation, a topic that Tim Wilson, Jon Pederson and I talked about during our blogger meetup in Stillwater, MN last week. We all felt like our blogs were important documents that represented a great deal of thinking and learning and, importantly, sharing. Strange but true.

I hope that thinking and learning and sharing happens to an even greater extent this year. There is so much happening, and it’s coming even faster, and it’s going to come even faster as more smart folks create more smart ways to create and connect to content. Keeping track of it and figuring out what it all means for teachers and schools and classrooms serves me as an instructional technologist, an educator, and as a learner. And hopefully, the transparency of doing so on a blog serves anyone else who is interested in these topics as well. So, my main goal for 2006 is to make this an even more effective space for capturing the learning that comes from my continuing interest in the Read/Write Web. And to nurture even more of a community around the ideas and tools that I write about.

Happy New Year everyone!