Closing the digital academic blog…

It’s so ironic…

I left work last September. My career in education was always centred around virtual learning so here’s the irony. At a time when HE has been forced into making a wholesale digital shift, I’m not there. Everything I worked on, presented, published and researched, was about teaching and learning online. I know how it works. The risks and benefits. Challenges and advantages. I’m comfortable setting up, moderating and participating in online study. I know my way around social media.

I have analogue roots and I know where we came from to get where we are today. For a long time, I was the digital academic with a passion for inclusion, in the final stages of a PhD. This was an extension of my work, documented across my blogs, and based on studying the digital shifts of staff teaching and supporting learning. Looking back, maybe it was too close to home. Maybe I was too much on the inside. I think I forgot how much an internet society champions progress rather than the baby steps needed to build initial access and interaction. My bad!