Resolution?

To be straight up front, I don’t believe in New Year’s resolutions. I have never really made one or at least made one that was reasonable, obtainable and really relevant to my personal and professional lives.

But…

I was watching Dave Cormier go off about the semantics of definitions–specifically the use (overuse? misuse?) of the word ‘open’–as in open-source, open-minded, open learning, etc. and it made me realize that blogging has really changed we share and learn. Blogging has allowed the non-specialized, non-academic to have a huge influence and sway on our collective thinking. No longer does thought (at least specifically educational-based dialogue) originate from those pillar of insight known as universities and the PhDs contained therein–they no longer set the bar and direction for pedagogical thought and practice. At the very least their influence has been ‘diluted’ by the plethora of iconoclast bloggers.

Of course, I do realize that this insight may not be a new one. For sure. But for me it really just seemed to come together as an ‘a-ha’ moment while watching Cormier. My ‘following’ list on Twitter, albeit very small, contains few (if any) PhD-type personalities. Obviously there are several reasons for this…but…

Could my lack of openness (!) actually reduce my ability to obtain, decipher and enjoy the professional dialogue because I don’t follow that PhD guy from Yale who specializes in curricular mathematics in the middle school realm? Maybe. Maybe not.

And I wonder if my M.Ed experience would have been different. It’s been over five years since its completion and I would if I had a blog and had this kind of free and ubiquitous access to my colleagues and their non-academic insights, would things have been a little bit different? Maybe. Maybe not.

Nevertheless, I have been inspired to attempt write three to four blog entries a week based purely on selfish means (aren’t most blogs just an opportunity for personal indulgences with very little substance? Mine is.).

Call this a resolution. Call it a promise. Or just an excuse to start thinking and writing.

But of course, common knowledge shows that humans rarely keep their resolutions for more than three weeks (the same time it takes to actually develop or break a habit). Three weeks the magic number. I guess we’ll see in February…