TechIntersect

Well, I have been blogging for a month now. It is a little embarrassing that it took someone with my experience to take so long to get a clue, but the demands of life and career have kept me away for far too long. It’s not like I was unaware of blogging and other Web 2.0 technologies. For example, in March of 2007 my wife & I met with Michael Wesch for lunch in Aggieville to talk about digital media and his recent success with the YouTube video “The Machine is Us/ing Us“. I really started becoming aware of Web 2.0 at that point; even inspired to upload some of my own Navy videos to YouTube. After that little burst of inspiration, I went back to business as usual, not contributing much of anything to the machine.

I guess I always thought that blogging was sort of narcissistic and self-centered. Now that I’ve given it a try, I believe it goes far beyond self satisfaction. It is a great way to organize and add permanence to your thoughts. I love that I can write about whatever I’m thinking about at the moment, and refer back at some point in the future if I need to. People have been doing this for ages in journals, but I always start out journaling with the best of intentions, only to let it fall by the wayside after a while. This is different because it is interactive. I guess at this point, I don’t really care if anyone reads these posts, but it’s nice because I do get an occasional comment once in a while.

The other thing that I didn’t really understand that blogging is not only about posting. It is about networking. It is about reading what others write and responding to that as well. I’m really jazzed to be finding people with similar interests as my own.

I really owe my change of viewpoint to attending the SXSW (South by Southwest) Interactive Conference in Austin Texas this spring. I thought that all of those folks “Twittering” at the conference had lost their mind. I brought my laptop computer, but left it in the hotel because when I attend a conference, I want to experience it, not dink around with a computer while someone is offering good information. I didn’t realize that they were actively engaged in a discussion about what was being said, perhaps even more engaged in thought than I was.

Blogging was discussed at a number of the panel sessions that I attended. I was amazed to learn that corporations pay professional bloggers to create buzz about products and services. I still didn’t fully understand it all, but I sensed there was more to blogging than I had realized. I began to explore educational blogging, and soon discovered http://www.edublogs.org. I am continually learning something new each day, and I’m truly just as excited about the promise and potential of the Internet as I was the day when I hooked up my Packard Bell to Prodigy, and soon after, America Online.

Soon, I will be attending the Wakonse Conference on College Teaching in Michigan. I attended that conference a couple of years ago, and really started getting excited about scholarship of teaching and learning. The biggest thing I learned at that conference is to start having more fun in my teaching, and to be myself. I realized that I was too worried about being serious and respected, without understanding it is possible to be fun and respected (much closer to my true nature.) My classes are going better and my students are learning more when I’m being myself. Now that I’m engaged in blogging, and aware of what teachers are doing with Web 2.0 technologies, I wonder what I will learn, and what I myself can share with other college educators. Anyhow, stay tuned… I’ll keep you posted how that conference turns out.

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