It All Ends...Or Begins

And that's a wrap! For now. This past week, our class finished up hosting an expo where we had the opportunity to share our final projects with the community. I was very nervous beforehand--public speaking is not my favorite activity, and in addition to anxiety about my own project, I was on the team that had planned the entire event (the space, tech aspects, presentation order, etc.). But in the end, things mostly went off without a hitch. My project was one I felt passionately about, and besides, its topic (comics) was fun; so it was a pleasure to talk about it with curious members of the community as they stopped by. I had brought samples of kids' work to show off what they could do, and I have to admit I was a bit like a proud parent, pleased with the audience's oohs and awes at how creatively the kids had supplemented their limited English with pictures.

I've deeply valued the opportunity to think through my TuneItUp project this quarter. Part of what I've really liked about my Web-Enabled Teaching and Learning class has been the freedom to pursue topics that genuinely interest me. I've really tried to take advantage of that, and have been surprised by what I can do when given a sort of intellectual sandbox to simply play in. I'm now thinking very seriously about taking my prototype all the way as a master's project.

Another great insight that's come from this class has been the realization that I really enjoy blogging. I haven't always been able to dedicate as much time to it as I'd like, but there's something I find very satisfying about creating an interesting post (well, interesting to me, anyway) and being able to immediately publish it on the web. I like the short, casual form, and the ability to pull in images or link to any other resource on the Internet.

So I've also been thinking lately of starting another blog around the theme of "learning hacks." I'm very interested in the topic of informal learning--learning that takes place on the go, or in settings we don't traditionally think of as educational; and I think the topic is one that could find a wide audience. I think it would be fun to write about "hacks" that make learning easier, cheaper, or more accessible to busy people--lectures on audio, say, or using historical fiction to learn about history, or "reading" tough works of literature via Twitter. We've learned a lot during Web-Enabled Technologies for Teaching and Learning about the tools (websites, organizations, etc.) that increasingly make this possible; I want to write about the human side, about how these tools could actually fit into people's lives in the twenty-first century US. I'd like to convince people that learning doesn't have to exist in some isolated box called school but can be a part of every day.

So the class and the year are ending...but I think, really, this post is a lot more about beginnings. We'll see where it all goes in 2010. Thank you, thank you, thank you!