Enjoying What You Do

That's my New Year's resolution this year.  I don't often do New Year's resolutions because they're often broken and why wait until January first to improve one's life.  Indeed, I hope that this year's resolution is merely a reinforcement of a lifelong attitude.

Enjoy what I'm doing rather than only doing what I enjoy.

Definitely I enjoy teaching, or more realistically, facilitating teaching and being there to observe learning.  I've come to realize that I can't split wood as easily as 30 years ago, or run as quickly and as long, or live on just brief hours of sleep, but I can share the experiences of a rich and full life.

Blogging should be enjoyable.  Writing about what one observes and feels through life.  Reading a blog should also be enjoyable: pictures coming to the mind either through words or images, or both.

Some argue that blogging in education should include analysis and synthesis of in-depth conversation over an extended time creating new knowledge.  This certainly doesn't imply a direct link to enjoyment, nor does it imply exclusivity.  One of our goals in blogging in education, is to blend enjoyment with the acquisition of knowledge or the facilitation of learning.

I so remember a couple of families in Alaska, who at a crossroads in their lives, sat down and discussed their future and how to find a way to generate enough income to sustain themselves and enjoy themselves at the same time.  One developed an alternative "green" business of designing and setting up off-the-grid home electrical systems.  The other engineered earth friendly sewage and water systems.

We too can engage in conversations developing blogs that people simply enjoying writing, reading, and that facilitate learning and new knowledge at the same time.  Although we might to think we are the first to think of this grand idea, there research among professionals that can guide us.  That, as in any good thesis, is our next step; investigate the literature and make that a part of our blogging.

Here are several articles that simply come up by searching Hamersley under the keyword "blogging" in ERIC:

•Duke, S. Educating Public Relations Students to Enter the Blogosphere: Results of a Delphi Study.Journalism and Mass Communication Educator v. 63 no. 4 (Winter 2009) p. 317-32 

•Bird, E. This Blog's for You. School Library Journal v. 55 no. 11 (November 2009) p. 26-9

•Huang, S. L., et. al., Designing a semantic bliki system to support different types of knowledge and adaptive learning. Computers & Education v. 53 no. 3 (November 2009) p. 701-12

Collectively we can read several articles and by blogging about them we can all benefit from each other.

"May the Force be with you."