My Foray into Blogging

Well, this is major turn of events for me in that I have resisted, for many years now, to begin writing a blog. I am not sure why, but I think I have been hesitant to maintain my a blog for that one key word.. "maintain". The maintenance commitment seems to be rather significant, and I have never been sure of the level of commitment I can provide outside of my friends, family, fiance, and cat.


However, as I embark on a new chapter in my life, and a new course of study at Johns Hopkins University, I am going to take some baby steps, and bashfully participate in the blog-writing process. 


The title of my blog is hugely important, for many reasons. The first, is somewhat ironic, in that I have worked for the largest Support Organization within the NYC Department of Education, called the Empowerment Support Organization. Not too much irony there you may think, except just as I gain the momentum to write my blog, the DOE decides to disband Empowerment and the organization no longer exists. Nor does my job as I have known it for the past 2.5 years. 


And yet, I remained faithful to the name simply because, regardless of organizational names or titles, my passion is the true empowerment of educators and students. My own empowerment, as an educator, has led me from the UK to USA working in a variety of roles. My latest role undoubtedly has the most impact in respect to empowerment (more on the specifics in future posts) due to the fact I am able to provide opportunities for students and teachers to direct their own learning opportunities, share their results, and collaborate around innovative models of instruction.


My continued pursuit of personal and professional empowerment has afforded me the opportunity to enroll in a unique program at Johns Hopkins University here in the US. This is an online program organized in conjunction with ISTE, leading to Administration Certification with an emphasis on Instructional Technology. 


Many of my posts will relate directly to this program, as I will be required to utilize this forum for some assignments. Other posts will be purely for me, and whoever else wants to read them.


Hopefully there will be a growing number of people who will have an interest in my writing, points of view, and ideas.