Hello World!
Hello World!
My name is Jordan Williams and I'm a "digital native" millennial (front end), a media integration specialist, an edtech enthusiast, a librarian, a former English teacher, an amateur speech writer...and yet I have never had a blog!
I guess I consider myself to be a private person. Plus - what have I got to say that anyone would spend their precious free time reading about it? Even more, I can barely commit to regularly writing 140 characters, let alone a full on blog post!
Nevertheless, my latest class in working for my MLIS degree, "Instructional Applications of the Internet," has urged me to start one. I look forward to the challenge, and hope I can consistently post once a week not only during this course, but beyond as well.
Now, I've not kept a blog before (or a journal), so I'm not very familiar with the text type. But I am familiar with the writing process, and know that I'll most likely have a shaky start before finding my groove, so please bear with me!
Despite attending two edtech workshops and two librarian conferences, I've actually secretly looked down on the whole "blog thing." I've always thought that blogs in education were the same thing as having a notebook in the class, journaling in response to prompts given to students. The idea that it makes learning more authentic for students is still something I'm searching for within my own context. My students have never seemed psyched about maintaining a blog for my class, and I've little evidence that they're actually connecting with others around the world through their school blogs.
I'm slowly turning the corner, though, as I've started following a few library and edtech blogs of those who really do know what they're talking about. I've also noticed that a lot of blogging is about critical reflection, and I do believe in that as an educational tool.
Some of the readings from this class have also begun to change my opinion of blogs. For example...
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| My daughter and me, vacation @ McCall, ID, USA |
My name is Jordan Williams and I'm a "digital native" millennial (front end), a media integration specialist, an edtech enthusiast, a librarian, a former English teacher, an amateur speech writer...and yet I have never had a blog!
I guess I consider myself to be a private person. Plus - what have I got to say that anyone would spend their precious free time reading about it? Even more, I can barely commit to regularly writing 140 characters, let alone a full on blog post!
Nevertheless, my latest class in working for my MLIS degree, "Instructional Applications of the Internet," has urged me to start one. I look forward to the challenge, and hope I can consistently post once a week not only during this course, but beyond as well.
Now, I've not kept a blog before (or a journal), so I'm not very familiar with the text type. But I am familiar with the writing process, and know that I'll most likely have a shaky start before finding my groove, so please bear with me!
Despite attending two edtech workshops and two librarian conferences, I've actually secretly looked down on the whole "blog thing." I've always thought that blogs in education were the same thing as having a notebook in the class, journaling in response to prompts given to students. The idea that it makes learning more authentic for students is still something I'm searching for within my own context. My students have never seemed psyched about maintaining a blog for my class, and I've little evidence that they're actually connecting with others around the world through their school blogs.
I'm slowly turning the corner, though, as I've started following a few library and edtech blogs of those who really do know what they're talking about. I've also noticed that a lot of blogging is about critical reflection, and I do believe in that as an educational tool.
Some of the readings from this class have also begun to change my opinion of blogs. For example...
- Blogs can eliminate barriers
- I love this idea and don't know why I didn't think of it before. It's exactly what I think of Twitter, and George Siemens noted this way back in 2002. How cool is it that we no longer need a middleman to disseminate information, but can hear straight from the horse's mouth?
- Blogs are a forum for the "academic conversation"
- Authors Boulos, Maramba, and Wheeler wrote that blogs "engender the drawing together of small virtual groupings of individuals interested in co-constructing knowledge around a common topic within a community of practice." The idea of co-constructing knowledge is at the heart of what education is today. How great is it that students can learn to connect with those around the world who have shared interests?
- Authors Ferdig and Trammell made the connection with educational theorist Lev Vygotsky that "knowledge construction is discursive, relational and conversational in nature." Again, the academic conversation has been going on for thousands of years and is so important to forming new knowledge...blogs are just a new medium for carrying out this timeless art.
So - I hope you've learned (or at least agreed with!) a thing or two in my very first blog post. I hope to keep reflecting on my journey as an educator, and hope that you'll maybe pop back in here every so often :)
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