“Comment More” by mrkrndvs is licensed under CC BY-SA
It is that time of year again when everyone starts making promises to be more connected, less connected or just connected differently. What is interesting are all the ideas that get floated around. Here is a collection of some of the new year opportunities:
- EDUBLOGS CLUB: Edublogs have long supported teachers and students with blogging through their courses, however this year they have started a club involving weekly prompts. These posts are brought together around the hashtag #edublogsclub. I participated in #youredustory in 2015, which was similar, so it will be interesting to see how it goes.
- 30 DAYS OF BLOGGING CHALLENGE: AJ Juiliani put together a month long challenge designed to get a jump start into blogging in 2017. What makes this different to past iterations is that it is personal. Whereas challenges, such as #28daysofwriting, focused on time spent writing and posting regularly, Juiliani’s interest is on committing yourself to a set amount of words per day and a number posts per week. This reminds me in part of the #750words challenge.
- COMMENT MORE AND “LIKE” LESS: Not so much a defined challenge or course, instead something of a personal personal. In response to 2016, Bill Ferriter sets forth the plan to invest more in comments in order to build deeper connections which can helps.us work together bring about change for a better world. This reminds me of a post by Steve Brophy from a few years ago. My only concern is whether such calls limit themselves by deciding what does and does not constitute a comment.
- THREE STEPS TO IDENTIFY AND DEVELOP YOUR DIGITAL IDENTITY: I get the feeling that this is probably incidental and not necessarily a part of the new year rush, but Ian O’Byrne has developed a guide for those wanting to take more control of their online presence. Along with his post on cyberinfrastructure they provide a good beginning or a useful reminder. I too have written something similar in the past.
Each of these ideas offers something to support educators in developing a more deliberate practice. However, none of them are necessarily new. More often than not they peter out. The question that we are left with is how might we habit that personal to each and every one of us? A part of me thinks that maybe this involves some sort of coaching, but what does that actually look like? As always, comments welcome.
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The Challenges and Tribulations of Being a Connected Educator by Aaron Davis is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
