On the Road Again

I'm in Kansas City with family and friends, thankful for the beautiful, wonderful people in my life, and missing those who are not with me. While driving here on Tuesday night and part of Wednesday, there was plenty of time to think about the classes I am taking (and plenty of wishing that I could somehow keep up with my course work while behind the wheel). Twelve hours of driving gives you a lot of thinking time!
For instance, I was thinking that if there was someone riding with me, which there was not, and they were driving and I had a smarter phone than I do, I could be riding as a passenger and keeping up with my online projects while crossing Iowa at 70 miles per hour. Who would have or could have imagined that in the not too distant past? Technology, if you have access, and that word, "access", is the key word here can take you many places. Without access you can't take that ride. Access is something that is not available to everyone. And access is the limiter to all of the wonderful tools that are available to us.

This is just a brief thought for the brief amount of time that I have access. More later...

It's So Easy

I'm taking an online course on Emerging Technologies and starting and maintaining this blog is part of my course work. As I add each gadget I continue to be amazed at how easy it is. Who would have known that I would have a blog, and now I have a blog with podcasts that people can subscribe to. Followers can also subscribe to RSS feeds to keep up to date with changes. Who would have known that I'd be doing this? AND I have followers. Ok, they are my fellow students, but overall I find it cool that there are people out there who are actually reading what I am writing!! There's no limit to what can be done with this blog. The only limit really is me, and I plan to do as much as I can to keep this blog going long after my course is over.

So Many Blogs, So Little Time

I am overwhelmed by the amount of information that is out there in the blogosphere! It just keeps growing and the world just keeps getting smaller. And the cloud just keeps getting bigger. You can find blogs on any subject you can think of. Where do people find the time to keep posting? I know I don't have that kind of time. Do you have to be that dedicated? Do you have to eliminate almost everything else from your life?

I am glad that I am enrolled in this class as it forces me to make the time to explore what's out there. Not all of it is good, but what a great way for people to express themselves. And as mobile technology expands, you can be anywhere and post a comment or make a statement about any subject you choose.

So I choose to continue to post; to make an effort to post on a daily basis; to share my thoughts about technology as it is in my workplace and technology as it is in my homeplace; to share my thoughts about technology as I think it should be in my workplace.

A New Day A New Blog

Using Blogger made setting up this blog so very easy. This is not the first blog I have created; but it is most likely the first that I will continuously post to! This will also be my first blogging experience within the context of an online course. I'm an eager and willing participant! I'm hopeful that I will continue to post to this blog long after this course ends, and that my students will find some value in its contents.

I enjoyed Henry Jenkins' take on academic blogging. He and his students use blogging to post their ongoing work, to seek collaboration and get their messages out their in real time. What a great way to expand your research base and at the same time get the most current data. The fact that many businesses latched on to the blogs as a way of keeping current, and actually creating in-house positions for some of the academic bloggers was outstanding. Job creation at its best! With so many students graduating from college - at both the undergrad and graduate level - with no jobs, it was gratifying to hear something positive.

I found it interesting that many of the incoming students were already very familiar with the media-studies program because they had been following the blog. It would seem that given their familiarity with the program, integration would be pretty easy when they arrived in the fall to begin their studies. Another plus was that graduates of the program would continue to be involved through their interactions online.

I'm looking forward to learning more about emerging technologies with my classmates. I'll keep you posted...