Reflection 12/5/07

As I reflect back on the last class session, all I can continue to think about is communities and community building. I never realized how prevalent community building is in my daily life. From work, to school (not only this class, but other classes in which I am enrolled), to daily social encounters with family, friends, and acquaintances, I'm recognizing the many different types of communities that I'm surrounded with and the many different ways they've been built...some stronger than others.

I have been working with my students in class at varying different levels of bond in terms of having a community built. My first-block CISCO "nerds" have a very different climate and sense of togetherness than my 32 fourth-block extroverted yearbook kids. ...and then I think back to the community I built within my keyboarding classes last year (again, a TOTALLY different environment). And we have this advisory period, weekly, on Wednesdays. Last year I had a group of 23 seniors...and this year I have 24 freshmen. WOW...what a difference it is. Neat thing though is that I'll have these 24 freshmen from day 1 to graduation. I have missed a lot of school over the course of this semester due to many different professional development opportunities, but I look forward to watching these freshmen grow over the course of their first year.

As I do my reflecting on communities, I always spring back to the various online communities that I am a part of. My roommates and I had a Christmas party on Saturday night and I think to myself about how much work the invitation process would have been without Facebook, MySpace, and text messaging. I'm almost overwhelmed at how fast technology is changing these days - and we're sitting in one of the most frustrating positions, struggling to stay on top and continue to deliver the newest, freshest technology available.