At the end of the corridor

Photo by Krišjānis Kazaks on Unsplash

After over 16 years and 968 posts I feel it is now time to say farewell to this blog. It's a sad decision but but having been retired from academic life for two years I don't feel I have much more to contribute to the discussion of technology in education. To be honest I have lost my enthusiasm and even interest in the field and see no sign of the spark returning. 

My posts over the past five years have become increasingly darker as the menacing shadows of surveillance, manipulation, commercial exploitation, disinformation and hatred contaminate the digital landscape and indeed society as a whole. Into this toxic environment we have now released the genie/demon of artificial intelligence, a power that we barely understand, with the potential to benefit science and education but with even greater destructive potential. This frightens me. Even more so when we consider our pathetically inadequate response to the galloping climate crisis and the rise of political extremism. I'm not sure that education has an answer to this, especially as we see a growing skepticism towards science and research. In many countries, including here in Sweden, we regularly hear politicians snearingly dismissing scientific research as nonsense and government policies are instead guided by prejudiced opinions. So much of what I believe in and value is being cynically destroyed and very few people seem to be concerned.

I have tried to respond to all this in a number of ways. I don't fly anymore, have become vegetarian (well almost), consciously try to cut my digital activities, watch and read much less news than before, never search with Google or Bing and don't use Chrome or Edge. Not that any of these things make any difference to the world but I am at least trying to adapt. I go on long walks in the region where I live and have discovered so many beautiful places. I read almost as much as I did in my student days but always printed books and very seldom contemporary literature. I don't plan for more than a few months in the future and try to find happiness in my own bubble. I have often written about the dangers of becoming trapped in the so-called filter bubble but today I find it a safe space, a shelter from the ignorance, hatred and manipulation of the modern world. 

I am very fond of this blog. It all started on 5 April 2008 with a post entitled quite simply Why?  I had started using social media and was trying to build a network using Twitter, Diigo, LinkedIn etc. A blog seemed a logical channel to add but I wondered how I could get anyone to read it.

The point of this and probably the majority of blogs is not to become famous but simply to write down ideas and impressions and be able to access them anywhere. If you have a few friends or colleagues who want to contribute then that's a bonus.

I'm interested in seeing what happens when I start this blog and how it develops. I don't have a clear idea of what I want to do with this but I like the idea of just casting off and letting the wind blow me along. Will anyone stumble upon this and comment? How do you get noticed in the world of blogging? Will I turn up on other blogs? If I continue writing like this, probably not.

So off I went writing about a wide range of topics. In the early years I wrote lots of shorter posts, some good but also plenty that were not terribly useful to anyone. I spent several years trying to find a format and eventually settled on writing one quite long post every week or so and that remained the strategy till I retired. I loved the heady days of Web 2.0, social media, open educational resources, collaborative tools, the early MOOCs etc. The internet was exciting, open, free and offered hope for a new approach to education. Online education could reach out to all and foster tolerance, understanding and solidarity. We could build a better future. I miss all that. We totally underestimated the power of tradition, greed and power.

My top post was Organising a digital conference from 2019 with 23,500 views, written only months before the covid pandemic forced all conferences online. I had been a member of a team who organised Sweden's first (we think) wholly online academic conference and showed that such an event could be interactive, engaging and collaborative. Curiously we ran a workshop on this theme at an international conference on online education that year and only three people showed up. The following year's conference was completely online!

I have never bothered analysing the statistics of my readers in any depth. I don't know how many regular readers I have had or whether many of the visitors were bots or real people. It's maybe best not to think too hard about all that. However, the blog became my window on the world and helped me to become part of an international network of educational technology professionals. It has reached an audience I could never have even dreamed of when I started, 1.35 million page views so far. I've written and co-authored plenty of journal articles but none with the reach of the blog. It has lead me into many exciting international projects and organisations and allowed me to work with inspirational colleagues with much higher academic merits than myself. 

Is this the end of the corridor then? At the moment I think so but I will let it rest for now and maybe some day I will get the urge again. Never say never again! But to all of you who read this and remember better times then I thank you for reading and giving feedback and comments over the years. Also thanks to all who have helped to widen my readership through tweets and posts on other social media as well as those who have simply "liked" my posts. Every like is appreciated. 

So until we meet again, thanks for the memories!