Jennifer Moss

Recently, I discovered an old wordpress blog I started in 2005 that I had completely forgotten about.  It makes me think about all the digital breadcrumbs down forgotten paths I’ve left all over the place over the years. I’ve started so many projects that seemed like a good idea at the time, were created just for testing, or out of simple curiosity. So, I decided to experiment with moving my blogger site back over to wordpress in a first step to consolidating some of the crumbs into a loaf.  I was pleasantly surprised how easy it is.

1. In Blogger, go to the settings panel and click on ‘Export Blog’

2. Click on ‘Download Blog’ – this will download an xml file to your computer with all your Blogger posts

3. In the WordPress dashboard in the Tools panel under Import, click on Blogger

4. The Authorize button which tries to connect directly to my Google account, which I tried initially, didn’t work even though I was logged into my Blogger account, had a new and unmodified template, etc. So, I tried importing the Blogger export file I created and it worked seamlessly.  

My old Blogger site is now moved into it’s new home of the even older WordPress site.  The casualties were that my blogroll links disappeared and the Blogger ‘Labels’ became WordPress ‘Categories’, which are nice because you can create sub-categories for better organization. The verdict is still out for which one I’ll keep, as I am fairly plugged into the Googleverse these days so I may end up reverting.

I’ve been thinking a lot about personal learning environments (PLE) since I started working at CDE during the week of iTeach in May.  It was quite interesting to check out the pet toolboxes and portable networks that others use for daily personal learning and exchange within communities of common interest.  There was a lot of overlap with my own personal favorites but I feel that my learning flow has also been shaken up a bit with the transition into the field of instructional design in a good way, as I begin to focus on new directions.  Thinking about myself as a learner and designer seems like a good place to start in trying to sort out some of the internal chaos during this transition.

Since I’m also in the process of buying/selling houses and moving, a floor plan seemed like a relevant visualization tool for the moment.  Having never created a PLE diagram before, it was an interesting exercise bordering on futile, as it seems impossible to reproduce all influences by and for the way one individual learns and ways which one connects within various communities. Limiting the PLE to only work would cut out a lot of exploration and learning, limiting it to the digital environment is also troublesome, yet that seems like a good place to start.  In the end, it became somewhat tiresome.  I just could not fit everything in – I need a bigger office and bedroom, not to mention a garage and patio. Despite the reservations I now have for this exercise it was still interesting to see what immediate major overlaps there are for me between work and fun on a very superficial level. This was not a big surprise but it’s nice to have my work happiness validated somewhat. Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life…