Lets flash back to a couple of weeks ago. The cool air was whispering through the open door of the LIBE 477 classroom, while chair legs squealed across the floor and students assembled themselves into one large, continuing circle. Time to share our thoughts and ideas for our future vision projects. While listening, I was inspired again and again by my classmates’ wise words. And then it came to my turn: my internal struggle with the challenge of using technology (keeping up with the times), and the importance of real life connections and connections with nature.

My desk: a succinct microcosm of my inner turmoil – an iPad, iPhone, and a sprig of lavender I had picked on the way to class. I feel myself constantly at odds between these two worlds. And here, therein, lies the biggest and most personal challenge that I have come across with this class and this project.

The “mega lightbulbage” (hashtag pending) that occurred for me – hey why not combine the two in order to simultaneously enhance the teaching of both – was great, and inspired me to go in the direction that I have. I have started a blog – yippee! And now I will try my darnedest to continue my blog and not let it drift aimlessly into the School Project Blog Graveyard that I have unfortunately contributed to in the past. And so, with my blog, lies my next couple of challenges:

1. Tech stuff. I already switched from my beautiful Weebly blog (*tear) in search of a more “followable” format – landing me at Blogspot. After coming to terms with my Weebly loss, I am happy with my decision, as it is now simple for me to search and follow the multitude of other education Blogspot blogs out there. I have found both pretty simple to navigate and play around with. Blog post #3 and hopefully a video to come soon!

Last tech thing: posting to WordPress from an iPad. I know I talked about this yesterday, but seriously, it is an experience akin to triple root canals.

2. Posting. I’ve put up one post so far and a lovely little picture. As I just said, hopefully more to come very soon. But there are so many great writers out there in the blogging world – their blogs complete with apt references, witty comments, and examples of their photos, crafts, and hundreds of extra curricular endeavours. I can only hope to join in at some level of this excellence.

Also, with posting, simply keeping up with posts. Once a week would be lovely. Twice a month is maybe more do-able. Anything less than that and I tend to view the blog as a bit of an afterthought for the blogger.

3. Accumulating followers, receiving responses to my posts, gathering a group of teachers willing to share their ideas with me, and cresting a space for real-life live collaboration. As Jenny would say, I want this blog to be a living, breathing, organism of teacher awesomeness. Well, perhaps those wouldn’t be her exact words. But they are mine, and that is what I am hoping for. As I mentioned yesterday as well, I will start sharing the !@*$ out of my blog as soon as I feel I have a good start on it. Perhaps one more blog in. Or perhaps, with the glass of wine that I plan to have tomorrow evening, I will work up the courage to share it on Facebook – to show my friends what I have been doing and what I am passionate about. So I guess this could lead me to a fourth challenge…

4. Confidence in what I am doing. This is integral to its success, I realize. The support of my classmates these past couple weeks has been a great confidence booster. But I can’t help but wonder…will people even care about what I am doing? And what does it say about the fate of our planet if they don’t? Environmental education provokes such a passionate response from somewhere deep in my soul that I cannot imagine other people not caring about it. But I know we are all different, and for good reason! So, I guess my real challenge lies in inspiring others to join the cause, and being confident in my abilities to do so.