I have been agonizing about the beginnings of this blog for weeks. Seriously. I’ve actually lost count of the number of times I loaded this webpage and eagerly clicked on “New Post” only to find myself staring at the white text box and a blinking cursor with no idea how I wanted to go about establishing myself in my own little corner of the World Wide Web.I think my trepidation stems from the fact that this is not my first kick at the proverbial blogging can. In fact, this is not even my second attempt at a blog. I created my first blog as a procrastination technique during my first essay season of university more than six years ago. Unfortunately, what started merely as a traditional journal in digital form quickly devolved into a slam book of sorts (Baby-sitters Club reference, anyone? Anyone?). Let’s just say that the entries weren’t worth preserving. If memory serves, I deleted the blog long before my first set of exams.
My second foray into the blogosphere started in July 2008 when I decided to try to chronicle the ups and downs of living and working as an ESL teacher in South Korea. The blog, in conjunction with a trusty Flickr account, was my way to stay in touch with friends and family back home who had yet to jump on the Facebook bandwagon. Blogging went smoothly for a couple of months, but eventually it deteriorated into hastily scrawled notes on Post-Its that got “filed” in the junk drawer of my desk and never made it onto the web. After allowing my blog to languish for several months without updates, I finally gave up the ghost and took it down. (In hindsight, perhaps I should have left it up...?)
Which brings us to attempt #3...
Eventually this blog will become a course requirement for History 9808, Dr. William Turkel’s Digital History course, which focuses on representations of history on the web and interactive systems (whatever those are... Do blogs and wikis count?!?). It will act as a forum in which I, along with my peers in the Public History program at UWO, publicly engage in reflective practice. At that time, I suspect that the tone, style, format and content of this blog might change to reflect a significantly more academic bent. Until then, I’d like to use it to explore (rather informally) the concept of public history as I currently understand it.
As a recent graduate of Brock University’s Faculty of Education, I have to admit to cringing inwardly a little at the mention of reflective practice. Since its introduction in Donald Schön’s 1983 book, The Reflective Practitioner, the concept of reflective practice has become one of the cornerstones of teacher training programs in Ontario, including the one at Brock. As such, I’ve written countless reflections over the last five years on topics ranging from teaching techniques to current issues in education to my evolving philosophy of education; the list goes on and on. Although I think the process of reflective practice is generally a valuable one both personally and professionally, I had secretly hoped that I’d done enough reflecting in teacher’s college to last me a lifetime. :) In fairness to the Public History program at UWO, however, this is the first time that I’ll be applying the concept of reflective practice to the discipline of history and in a digital format, so I’m excited to see how this experiment works out.
With that said, I’ll end this entry the same way my 7th grade English teacher, Mr. Blight, ended all of his classes, “Questions? Comments? Statements of brilliance...?” If you’ve got them, feel free to leave them, but please be gentle. This is a learning process. :)
Catherine, at first I thought you'd invented a time machine and travelled back a couple of months to get the jump on your classmates. Alas, this post turned out to be merely foresight on your part, which is also good. I think of reflective practice to be nothing more than the suggestion that one should think about what they're doing while they're doing it... and really, one should probably keep doing *that* throughout their lifetime. Best, Bill
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