Sparks flying

It's even busier, now that the marking is done. Each day I have a plan for tasks to complete and then I 'flow' into digital spaces, stopping to read and reflect. My current flow is streaming from Virtually connecting.

The Virtually Connecting conference schedule, with five conference events being organized, has been the focus for me in the past few days, and will continue into the next few weeks. I've created two blog posts for two conferences [Creative Commons Global Summit, OER18] and will begin the post for the OEGlobal conference in Delft. I will be actively participating in one capacity or another and supporting others to take on some new roles in the community. This NodeXL visual graphic shows the connections and my space/place in the open framework for the Creative Commons Global Summit and Virtually connecting.

I've also blogged a bit for the Ontario Extend activity bank

• Extending My Reach
• Bank Deposit
• I'm an Experimenter - a Lab Report

Only now I realize that some of the links are dropping and the pathway to my new Extending Thinking blog site, through Domain of One's Own is 'dead'. I'll need to put this onto my learning list and become better at managing my own domain through CPanel and Reclaim Hosting. 

I've added a blog post to the VoicEd.ca blog with some thoughts about nurturing The Reluctant Voice.

I've tweeted each day for the Daily Extend.

In reflection - I'm wondering how these are going to impact my 'SoTL' research for this eCampus open education fellowship. Something to think about this week as we dig into the SoTL module.

Where do I start?

I'm struggling with decision anxiety these days.

It's as if I've never done this before, but I have. It's as if I've never had these issues before, but I have. I'm opening up a Domain of One's Own through Reclaim Hosting - it's a gift of ownership and agency from eCampus Ontario. It's an opportunity to start over, begin anew, build my persona with care and intention. Be at the helm of it all - push and pull, flip the switch, start the engines. It's a surprisingly scary place to be for someone who's been blogging, tweeting and building course sites for many years.

BUT WHERE DO I START?

This is probably what every newbie shouts when they first start blogging, or join twitter, or connect through Facebook, or any of those other social media spaces. I thought it would be easier than it is - each decision hinges on the one before. Each layer builds on the level already created. I'm reluctant to start or shift things around, but I know I will. I just need to figure out where to start. Which dial or lever needs my attention first.

In reflection on this in relation to my own teaching practice and my learning in the open, I'm wondering how to re-build courses under my new domain, or even if I should. I'm wondering how my previous domain can be disconnected or even if it should. Once you've got a digital footprint, or tattoo, how do you go about shifting it when you want to reclaim and revise the image or impression. In this digital world that doesn't forget, how do you reshape the space you call your own? I'm about to find out.

I've started with the 'splash page' where it's very basic info about me. From there, I created a new blog and connected it to a subdomain. Now I'm looking at the design and structure of my MAIN blog site as a representation of me. From there, I'll see how my previous WordPress blog site - Five Flames 4 Learning - can be integrated into the domain architecture and nestled into the cPanel space. Little steps, exploring the dials for now. More tinkering and playing to come.

Openning a DoOO

As part of my Extend East participation, I've been sharing with others through the #oextDaily tweets. I've created a couple of blog posts and linked them into the Ontario Extend Bank. I've been reading and creating while learning and building connections from content to knowledge. Yesterday I went another step into extending and created my domain.

While I've already got two domains that are mine - hjdewaard.com is my Weebly domain and FiveFlames4Learning is my Wordpress domain, this is where I hopefully will migrate and create a 'super domain' to connect them all under one location. Not sure how that is going to happen, but for now, I'm taking advantage of the eCampus Ontario offer to have my domain hosted by Reclaim Hosting. I've claimed a domain that is unique - hjdewaard.ca is now mine and only mine. Here I will craft my launch into a new digital identity.

After looking at many other digital spaces listed in the Ontario Extend Domain of One's Own documentation, and reflecting on my own unique style, I'm deciding to go with a launch space that builds from the primordial metaphors from David Thornburg's Campfires in Cyberspace. These have resonated with me over the years and as I was grappling with this last night, I can neatly fit the digital work I've done, am doing, and will be doing, into these metaphors.

In the next few days, I'll try to craft with care, knowing that this is a beginning and that one space to rule them all will not necessarily mean that all the others will end. My work on the blog site Five Flames for Learning will continue but I can collect and share all the multiple blog spaces I've created over the years under the hjdewaard.ca domain.

I am open to the challenge of Domain of One's Own. It's a chance to reframe my digital identity and reshape my digital persona.