I sit and write this in a hotel in Sheffield ahead of recording some webinars related to the DfE Digital Standards over the next 2 days. Today isnt special for me due to what I am about to do, although I am very happy for the opportunity, but due to the fact 11 years ago, sat on the bed in my villa in Al Ain in the UAE I setup and published my first blog post. And yes, there is quite a difference between a villa in the UAE and a hotel in Sheffield; lets just say I am certainly not as warm as I used to be.
When I started my blog I was very much doing it for me. It was an act of putting things down in writing which forced me to decompose my thinking which often led to me challenging my own perspective and views. Part of the reason to start my blog was the fact I accepted that my memory was not as good and photographic as I thought it was and therefore writing things down, publishing them online made for a permeant record that I could compare over time. I will admit, when I started, I never saw myself still posting 11 years later and I don’t think I saw me finding the process as quite as valuable as I now find it.
And in writing for myself I have found that there are actually people out there reading my thoughts and at many points I thought no one read my musings; But remember my musings were for me so this wasn’t an issue. The recent BETT conference included a number of individuals, some I had met in person but a number I hadn’t, telling me they read my posts. I was connected to these people in sharing, but possibly more importantly my posts built an opportunity to connect with these people in person; I was originally going to put “real life” there but how is a connection made online any less “real” than a connection in person, although I would suggest in person has greater value in the non-verbal side of communications, empathy and emotional connections which are not as possible online. When I was struggling from a personal point of view I found people reach out and offer support, with some being people I knew in person and others being people I knew only online. I found myself helped by a network built from sharing my thoughts, although again those in-person relationships were that bit stronger than the online only ones.
When I consider online connectedness I have always considered it to be shallow and in some cases simply an illusion; I can be online chatting via social media with lots of people but still feel lonely, something I have posted about in the past. But equally the online connections can spring into real life connections that maybe, otherwise might never have occurred. I know after BETT I came away happy and energized, against a backdrop of some personal challenges. Some of this was due to connecting once more with in-person friends, some of it was due to new in-person connections but some of it was also due to online connections suddenly becoming in-person friends and colleagues. So maybe online connections arent shallow; Maybe this is too simplistic a categorisation. Maybe if they remain online and that is our only and principle connection, they remain shallow, but if this is simply the seed from which the in person connection grows then maybe we are all the better for it. Maybe there is a balance to be sought in relation to in-person and online connections, seeking to maximise the benefits of both types.
So 11 years of blogging; Where has the time gone? Funny enough I can answer that simply by reviewing my posts over the last 11 years. So, to the future, I will keep blogging for now at least and see where things go from there. For those reading this I just give thanks for giving my musings your valuable time and if I havent met you yet, then I look forward to hopefully meeting you in person at some point in the future; EduTech Europe 2024, BETT 2025 maybe?
This post was written on Monday 12th Feb, 2024
Technology and Learning