I hadn’t really thought about it much. I just keep blogging, periodically I take a look at the statistics – mainly to check out the number of pieces of spam that Akismet catches – but one of the newer features of Google Chrome is the notifications. The other day, I had this pop up.
It made me stop in my tracks. Six years on WordPress? Who knew? Before that, I had blogged on my employer’s FirstClass system so the number of years blogging is considerably more than that.
This time, I did take a more serious look at the statistics. It is kind of humbling.
I’m going to have to up my game if I intend to keep up with the spammers though!
This blog has always been my place to share my current thinking or exploration. Nothing more and I’m sure that if you went through post by post, you’d notice that my thinking has evolved or changed over time. I’m good with that; I’d hate to be one of those one track mind folks. But, I’d like to think that what’s consistent in the message is:
- everyone needs to know how to code. I do make a distinction between coding and formal programming. Not all of us will write the next “Angry Birds” but we should know how to configure out devices and understand at least a bit of what makes your computer and/or other device tick and work on the web;
- we need to teach students the best about being a digital citizen and the responsibility that goes with posting your thoughts and pictures online;
- if we’re posting or working online, we absolutely need to know the best of the tools for management;
- new software and web services appear daily. It’s important to discover and play around with what’s new. The next best way to reach students might be contained therein;
- we might not all be able to attend every conference that’s available but we should be sharing our thoughts when we’re fortunate enough to attend one.
One of the other things that came through as I explore that WordPress badge was that I had achieved a number of other badges just by being here. Things like “likes” and “follows”. That’s the sort of thing that makes having an online presence so powerful.
Online, I’ve met so many interesting people and I’ve been able to leverage their smarts to help me see insights that I would have otherwise missed. There’s a slim chance that I would get to meet them all personally but that would just be the icing on the cake. Just having them a comment or Twitter message away reinforces the value.
There has been so much value that I, selfishly, have received from this blog. For those people, thank you so so much. You make it all worthwhile. As I’ve mentioned before, I’ve never considered it work.
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doug -- off the record 
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