Blogging on blogging.

I never thought I would keep a blog. I kind of thought blogs were for pretentious people who like to talk about themselves a lot and write uninformed opinions about politics. I was absolutely correct of course and I have now become one of those people. I must say, however, although it has been a drag at times having to write something for my massive following of four every week, I have for the most part enjoyed it. It took me a while to find my 'voice' as this is a new mode of communication for me and I'm the type of person who generally likes to keep his opinions to himself. I have played around with trying to be humorous and then taking a more serious approach focussing on the readings. Through trial and error I seem to have arrived now at a kind of middle ground that feels quite comfortable and natural and I can actually see myself continuing this blog in some form or another in the future.

I have used this blog mainly for reflection. My focus has been both on social issues concerning digital technology and also the ways it might be used in teaching. On the whole, I think it has been beneficial to me. I think the main benefit is it just that it gets me to articulate my thoughts on the content. This helps clarify my thinking and forces me to reflect to a much greater degree than simply doing the readings and turning up to class. While my page doesn't get a whole lot of traffic, at times people's comments have got me to reconsider my views or at least make me think about things more deeply. I have found it a little difficult to comment on other people's blogs – it almost feels a bit rude – but I have enjoyed reading others' blogs and have learnt a great deal from other people's insights. What a smart bunch you are!

Playing around with embedding videos, hyperlinks, making little movies and so on has really opened up a whole new world to me. Although I have expressed some reservations about the social ramifications of digital technology, I am genuinely enthused about getting out into the classroom and trying to incorporate some of this technology in my teaching practice. I'd never really considered using digital technology in the class beyond producing word docs, power points etc but that has certainly changed.

As far as embedding links to educational resources etc. as you might have noticed, I haven't done so. Part of this is due to the fact I only have a mobile internet connection which is pretty slow and makes jumping around on the web pretty frustrating. Also, finding the time with work commitments and so on has been difficult. Maybe over the coming months as I prepare for my prac I may put some links here.

Well that's enough I think. Thanks to everyone who has commented on my blog over the last couple of months. Hopefully we can all catch up soon for a drink or two in the very near future.