I finished the Fall semester today! Grades are turned in, students are congratulated… and while they might fretting about finals next week, I am thinking about the fun things I get to do between now and January when classes will start up for me again.
And one of the fun things I will get to do is to keep on blogging in this webspace. I started this blog on October 25, and I’ve managed to keep at it, Monday through Friday, for the past six weeks, with no shortage of things to blog about, even though I am still an LMS minimalist. Canvas is not so much the subject but more like the excuse for writing about issues in teaching and learning that interest me.
Someone at Twitter remarked today that she didn’t have time to blog, whereas for me, it is kind of the opposite: I don’t have time not to blog. Blogging is what helps me keep my focus from day to day, especially on big questions and long-term projects that I would lose sight of if I were not blogging. Blogs are also how I share my work with others online, linking to my blog posts at both Twitter and Google+. And, most importantly, blogging is how I become a co-learner together with my students: they are writing in their blogs several times each week, and I am doing the same.
This blog, for example, is my first WordPress blog; I usually use Blogger, and so do most of my students, but some of my students do use WordPress, and now I will be able to learn some blogging nitty-gritty together with my WordPress students in the Spring.
Since there is a WEC workshop next week at my school, that will probably be a good excuse to think some more about writing in general and blogging in particular, so after the flurry of posts about grading this week and last, next week will be about something more fun: writing. Are you an OU faculty member? Come join in; you can find out more and register here: Online Mini Course: Writing Enriched Curriculum.
HAPPY FRIDAY, EVERYBODY!
And, as always, this is crossposted at OU Canvas Community.
