Monday, September 1, 2008

The transition from tourist to traveler...

The theme of my last post was all about vacations and I must have taken that to heart as it has been 3 months since I have posted anything to my blog. Now that's a vacation. I have struggled to determine why my writing so suddenly dropped off and I think there are a number of factors to blame. Warm weather, longer days, vacation and children home from school would be the usual culprits. Those reasons certainly played a part but I think more importantly I had exhausted the path I had originally set out on.
Make no mistake -- there are many destinations left in the world of Web 2.0 and I have visited many of them over the last 3 months. I have found a fantastic Blog from an educator in the United States that alerts me to several great tools a day, participated in a live webcast, harnessed the power of podcasts for my own continuing professional development, created a Ning for the parents of my community, and have even started reading works of classical literature one RSS feed at a time. It has been an amazing journey, but, the question becomes are the stops along the way the really important thing?
Henry Miller said “One’s destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things.” As I have made my way across this new landscape of the internet I have certainly begun to see things differently. Interaction, communication, socialization and education (both my children's and my own) don't look quite the same as they did 6 months ago. Do I like everything I see -- well of course not -- but I see a lot that makes me very excited for all that is now possible.
So I think that I am ready to resurrect my blog. However, I'd like to think that I have made the transition from tourist to traveler. I will no longer be offering bus tours of the best tourist stops on Web 2.0. I offer instead a narrative of what it is like to be a parent traveling in a land where our children are natives and we are foreigners. With that in mind I will leave you to ponder one of my favourite travel quotes that I often mutter to myself when abroad .....

“Remember that a foreign country is not designed to make you comfortable. It is designed to make its own people comfortable.” - Clifton Fadiman

2 comments:

Jeannine St. Amand said...

I too have explored a lot this summer, but have done very little writing about it. I've done a lot of personal learning, and even helped my children start their own blog. But I haven't been able to concentrate on how we get more parents using the tools to connect, to learn and to participate in our schools.

I'm looking forward to the return of Parents as Partners - it helps me focus my blogging efforts.

Lorna Costantini said...

I am glad your writing hiatus is over and you are back at your post. Can't wait to hear about your summer.