My thanks to everyone who has read, commented, and become a part of my life through technology. This will be my last blog post here and similar messages are going into my other sites. Soon I will send my last email message. On Monday the cell phone gets turned off for good. I’m going wholly analog in my life and devoting myself to writing full-time. My last day at work for UAF will be Friday, April 14th.
It’s been fun, but I’m overwhelmed, deluged with information, and ridden with cynicism. I’m no longer the true believer I used to be about technology. I used to think it could make our lives better, make richer educational experiences, bring new vitality into the arts, and help level a world that has increasingly become a fractured domain of a few haves and masses of have-nots. Perhaps in an ideal world, but not in this world. Not where I live.
If I am going to burn my remaining hours on something fruitless, I might as well burn them on something I still believe in and that might just outlast me a little longer than the lifespan of my sturdiest power supply. What I believe in is beautiful words put together in the right order. I would trade everything I’ve ever done related to computers and technology for the experience of creating a single masterful poem. And in a way that’s exactly what I will be doing. Whether I will ever create that masterpiece is a question of time.
I have to thank my late grandfather for making this possible and have to believe that he would support me using his bequest this way. My best to you… wish me luck!
This better be in the spirit of the 1st or I’m going to kick your a**!
If this is in fact the case, I’m happy that I had the chance to work with you when I did, because you opened some doors for me. Thanks.
[...] I don’t normally post about technology tools because that isn’t my area of expertise. I’m more aligned with English teachers than technology specialists. But I can learn from anyone. It wasn’t very long after I began blogging (about a year ago) that I noticed there is a blogger food chain. Chris, who regrettably (for me) seems to be retiring from public life, commented on this a while back in a post called Gatekeeperology. Links are the currency that makes blogging work as a knowledge resource. The reason I’m writing on Borderland is to bear witness to my experience as a teacher in a confusing era in which political pressure on teachers and students is working to narrow our focus, while ironically, technological advances are opening new possibilities for making meaning. Sharing classroom experience and threads of ideas with others who can help us make sense of it all is immeasurably valuable. It’s good to be linked. [...]
Hahaha…nice one.