Five Years of Blogging

Five years ago today, I published my first two posts on this blog. As I noted in my first post, five years ago I was developing a course on social media tools for K-12 teachers called Building Collaborative Online Environments. I didn’t feel that I could really encourage teachers to use these tools with digging in to use them myself. Will Richardson was the SME for that course, and I’m very grateful for his influence in starting me on this path.

This is my 820th post—not very many in five years, actually, especially when you consider how many of those are bookmarks posts. In 2010, I slowed down in posting quite a bit; I only posted 36 times total in the entire year. I have done better in 2011, with 52 posts, but one of my goals for 2012 is to blog more regularly. I can see the effect of infrequent posting in my stats. Monthly views plateaued for most of 2009 and 2010, but started increasing again in 2011 as I posted more often.

When I started this, I had no idea how much I would learn through blogging and how many wonderful people I would get to know. I’m a better instructional designer today because I’ve been blogging for five years. This blog forces me to reflect on what I’m doing and learning on an ongoing basis. I’m not sure I would have been confident enough to quit my job and become an independent consultant if I didn’t know I have a network of terrific people built through this blog and other tools. Thank you for reading, commenting, blogging, and sharing. I’m looking forward to continuing to learn with you all for the next five years.

Image: ‘Five Years‘