2020 Nexus

First, let me publicly thank Sue Waters of Edublogs, who helped me get back into my account after I tweeted about my difficulties.  She answered and helped me within just a few hours without being asked. What customer service!

I can’t believe I’ve been away from this blog for so long.  Life and a night job got in the way.  I never felt I had lots of time to blog, nor any original things to say, but I did try for a while.  Then I was working two jobs.  Surviving that showed me that I do have more hours in the day than I thought and sleep is overrated.  (Okay, I’m lying about the sleep. Enough sleep is absolutely critical.) 

Now that my night contract is finished, I hope to blog every week or so.   I’m not making a resolution for the new year — it’s nearly February already — but I am making a concerted effort to get involved in my professional learning communities again, both on and offline.  It’s imperative that I try to give back as others have given to me in the form of resources, links, ideas, advice, experience, and HOPE.

I mentioned I had a night job for a while.  For the past few months I’ve left home at 7 a.m. and returned at midnight.  It was with some effort that I have been able to maintain my relationships with friends and family on weekends.  You can imagine the professional isolation I experienced because I had no time to visit with colleagues.  Every minute of planning periods and lunches had to be used wisely since I was leaving school at 4 p.m.

I forgot how isolating my day job can be anyway; the people, equipment, and policies there are painfully ambivalent toward tech-infused teaching, web-based literacies, etc.  That is slowly beginning to change and each tiny step is a wonderful thing.  But we have a long way to go and there are so few staff members at my school or district who have even a passing acquaintance with educational technology.  My attempts at evangelizing them have largely failed and I’m too impatient for change, I’m sorry to admit.  So you can see how a gal could get lonesome.

It’s really been my online education network that has been a lifeline through the past 5 years or so.  Therefore I have to acknowledge that the hours I’ve spent on Twitter, Google Reader, Classroom 2.0, and in the blogosphere were worth it.  I do want to maintain balance and work harder to develop collegial relationships offline, but I’ve decided I can’t survive professionally without my virtual professional learning community.  So I thank you, you early adopters, ed tech pioneers, generous Twits who share so much great information and gifted bloggers who’ve so inspired me. Thanks and thanks again!

There are a lot of changes and opportunities coming into my life, so I hope to share some of the excitement with  you here in the near future.  Until we meet again, Happy New Year!