A New Blog for All Things Web 2.0

Over the years, on more occasions than I can recall, I have suggested to professors that blogs are the way to go. I have always believed that reflection is one of the most important parts of learning, so I was naturally drawn to blogging as an educational tool. It's been a few years since I've been in the classroom, so I had inadvertently become one of those people who preached the importance of a process that I had never really seen through from beginning to end. I had been using journals in classrooms since I first created a syllabus, but blogging...

For better or worse, I've kept personal blogs on and off for the last ten years. And while I'm glad some of them have disappeared into the dark depths of cyberspace (Thank goodness MySpace deleted everyone's blogs!), I've tried to maintain my most recent online writing adventure since 2014. I don't post often, but what I do post is sincere. Yet there's always been something missing from that blog, and tonight I realized what it was. It's the marriage of two of my favorite worlds: education and writing! Although I have written about my professional experiences on my blog, I've never used a blog to focus on all the incredible things that are happening in higher education, especially higher ed and technology, which is where I find myself so comfortably situated these days. 

Enter EME 6414: Web 2.0

Something rather serendipitous happened earlier this summer - I found myself back at FSU, after almost 20 years, to complete a grad certificate in instructional design. My first class was on data analytics, which is an area I'm incredibly interested in, and as could be expected, I loved it. In addition to the base of knowledge, the class gave me some clarity into my next educational journey - something that I had been searching for for a long time. 

This week started EME 6414: Web 2.0, another course that I'm excited to be a part of. I read over the syllabus, and as luck would have it, guess what is required - a blog! After all these years of not seeing exactly how a blog works in a class, and after all of these years of not starting the educational blog that I wanted, I have been given the opportunity to do both!  

And I have a feeling this is the beginning of something I've needed for a long time.