Ed Bilodeau

This weblog had moved: http://www.coolweblog.com/bilodeau/

# Notice (Oct 19/05): So ends my stay here on Blogger. This morning Google implemented an anti-spam 'feature' that forces me to answer a challenge phrase when I want to post to my own blog. No notice of the change, nothing. Worse is that it doesn't even work! I type the phrase, submit, "An error occured", post deleted. Damn you, Google. Chances are I will revive my blog somewhere else, sometime soon. I'll post the new coordinates here as soon as they become available. (BTW, I'm unable to post anything to my RSS stream, so I'd appreciate it if readers could spread the word and ask people to take a look at this notice)

Update (Oct 19/05, ~noon): After a frustrating few hours (and not just trying out alternatives to Blogger), I've decided that this is a good time to take a break from all this. A day? A week? Who knows. But I need to step away from it before I pass a heavy magnet over the whole mess.

Update 2: According to this post, the reason I'm seeing the CAPTCHA (challenge phrase) is that Blogger has classified my blog as spam. Thanks. User for five years and now I'm spam. I searched the Blogger site, but there is no mention of how to get the spam flag turned off. There is also no way of contacting anyone at Blogger. Wow. Spam they say I am, so spam I must be. Maybe it is time to take a break.

Saturday, March 12, 2005

# Seven years : Today is my seventh anniversary of weblogging. At the beginning, I didn't know enough to call it a blog, but looking back, that's what it was. There have been some ups, some downs, along with a few hiatuses. But there you have it.

I decided to mark the date with a new, simple design, as well as a new focus for this blog, an explicit statement of the direction I would like to see this blog take. This will mean that some subjects will fade to the back, while others will rise to the fore. In doing so, I am hoping to make this a more valuable undertaking for everyone involved.

The focus is stated in the new title: Designing Learning Environments. I've been thinking about the variety of projects and undertakings I am involved in (my work, my teaching, my research), trying to find a thread that I could use to tie them together and provide a way of understanding what, to some, may seem like an unrelated hodgepodge of ideas. The design of learning environments is that thread.

My research interests focus on the social learning environment. My work as a teacher and administrator, meanwhile, has me looking at the physical and virtual environments in which learning takes place. The subject of my teaching (web design and development) relates directly to the design and construction of virtual environments. This new focus on the design of learning environments is an attempt, then, to use this weblog as a way for me to situate, position, and make sense of that which I will now call "my work."

One last thought: It is slightly depressing to think that the first words I wrote on the web may be the ones I am most proud of:

Spend any time at all surfing the Net, and you quickly discover that there are a lot of people who spend a lot of time and effort publishing information on subjects that interest them. Whether it's a father putting up pictures of his family, a student building a shrine to her cat, a teenager listing the titles in his video game and music collection, or a young lawyer designing a site dedicated to her favorite Californian wines, they all have some things in common. They all feel passionately about something, and they all want to share their passions with others.

It is important to remember that the Web is only a passive, malleable technology. Some people simply want to spend time reading through what others have created. Some want to seek this information out, others want it pushed at them. Still others thrive on many-way communication, and the Internet makes that possible as well. Newsgoups, chat rooms, or simple e-mail all make it possible for people from all over the world to communicate almost effortlessly.

This is cyberspace: the virtual space where all these communications, exchanges, and conversations take place. And [this] is my contribution to that conversation.

I hope that my ongoing contribution will continue to be of interest and of value to you, my reader.

Comments:

Congrats on that anniversary, Ed! And I love the new title & focus.

# posted by

Sebastien : 8:04 AM