The Vision

So some days I get discouraged. And it's on those days that I take a deep breath and redouble my efforts.

Yesterday I was feeling a little low for a few reasons, one of them being that my online presence/blog/digital literacy is not what I want it to be. And I didn't really know what I wanted it to be. Sometimes it seems like everyone else is doing so much better at all this than I am. I was talking to Dr. Burton about some of this and how I'm considering going to grad school for instructional psychology and technology (SURPRISE! In case you didn't know that). Whether or not I go to grad school will depend on several factors, but I've been considering it more seriously as of late. Anyway, Dr. Burton suggested I make a kind of online portfolio, a site where I can refer people like potential employers, graduate school admissions boards, and so on. So I thought about that for awhile, and today the sun broke out from behind the clouds in brilliant flashes of inspiration and I suddenly knew what I wanted to do.

So here it is--the vision for le blog as my online portfolio: the sum total, the conglomeration of my online presence. ME ONLINE. You get the idea.



I want my blog to include:

Tabs along the top to navigate: Would include things like "Current Topics of Interest" "Important People" "Life Events & Reflections" "Rants" "Work" and so on. I need to start using tags for my posts so they are more searchable. Luckily that shouldn't take too much time to make up. I don't know how to do tabs yet, but they can't be too hard, can they?

Current topics I'm researching: Open education, academic blogging, women's studies, family history, design, etc. I could have a page that lists my posts and links on certain topics

Link list (just added today!): If you look on the right side under my profile, you'll see a tab called "Things I'm Thinking About" and a list of links. I use a social bookmarking site called Diigo, which is immensely handy--you can bookmark sites and it gathers all the links to them in one place--and you can add a widget to your blog that shows things you're bookmarking. Cool, right??

Video stream: I don't quite know how I'll do this yet. YouTube channel, maybe? 

People of Interest: Big names in the fields I'm interested in (open education, digital culture, etc.) and the things they're talking about. It's important to know the thought leaders in your field, and I haven't been very good about identifying those, though I have gotten better.

Books: I have a Goodreads widget on the right as well, but I need to update it because it hasn't changed for awhile. I would like to find a better way to represent this information.

• Follow Me buttons for Google+, Facebook, and Twitter: No, I haven't started using Twitter yet. I have an account, but it's not functional. I'd also like to include some Google+ discussions I've been participating in somehow. 
• Work: Papers, projects, presentations, posts on other blogs, resume, etc.

Yeah! Isn't this exciting? I'm kind of jazzed about it. I want this to be my online home base, the place I can point people to when they want to know what I'm interested in and what I've done. I want this to show my learning process and the things I'm thinking about and working on. I want it to be a resource for me and for others. 

I remember way back in 9th grade when one of my classmates asked me if they could download my brain. Well, here's a part of it. 

Photo credit: Foto Jenny on Flickr