This is my first Blog Post, which is obvious from the title. I’m getting the feel for blogging here and using this site. I have a personal blog on Tumblr where I mostly talk about my children and offer some funny insights into my parenting http://mouthymom.com/. I haven’t used it as much as I thought I would, but perhaps blogging here will get me more in the habit.
There’s an interesting mental block that happens when I try to write online as I become very aware that what I’m saying is public. That will be an interesting challenge for me in this course as I also just created a twitter account. For now, I think I will just follow some people and organizations before deciding to jump in and tweet myself.
I think a course on technology will be a positive challenge for me as I’m not naturally drawn to technology. It’s not that I’m opposed to it per se, I just don’t often seek it out. If something arises and I feel technology would help, I’m generally able to figure it out. Although I will admit I enlist the help of my family members to help me when I’m unsure of what I am doing. For instance, my 10-year-old daughter helped me set up this site! It’s amazing how intuitively children of her generation can figure out technology. This is why I feel I need to be more adept at using these technologies. First, as a mother I want to be abreast of what my children are learning. Second, as an educator, I feel compelled to know what my students will be learning in their classrooms. As I work with preschool-aged children, it is fascinating to think of the technologies they are growing up with and wondering how this affects their learning and cognitive growth.
I know for this course we are encouraged to use digital texts, so that will be a challenge for me as well as I prefer a book and a pen in my hand. I’ll keep an open mind and try not to be too skeptical of the technology that exists and how I can use it for my students.
Fishing for Thoughts - Susan Carroll's Reflections on Connected Teaching and Learning 
Your writing on your tumbler is beautiful. I understand the challenges of keeping up with a site like this, and your blog is so lovely and honest that whatever writing you do there is a gift.
I hear you about the “public” part of writing in a space like this. At the same time, I am so clear about what it takes to establish audience in these times of so much information swirling around us, and when I was blogging more regularly and actively taking steps to build audience, my “public” was at best 100 people, some regulars, most people who wandered in now and then.
A goal of writing in spaces like this in this course is to find a networked community just large enough to learn from and with as we think out loud together. To me, that scales things way back from “public” to “community”. and makes it a bit easier to type …
I nudge people in this class to playfully ban the word “tech” for the first weeks. Instead, think about what is being done with devices, and which of those things are worth learning to do well and which are best done without digital devices. Flashing apps that drop rewards on the screens of small children are likely not supporting anyone’s growth. Apps that enable children to create and to represent their knowledge to others and to talk with caring adults who view videos of fascinating things with them — some of those things may be of value. So if you rewrote these last paragraphs without the word “tech”, what would you be saying?
Looking forward to learning more with you on all of this.
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