Oh My Gaw We're Back Again!

It is interesting to me that keeping a blog is an assignment for my MEd. I used to be an avid blogger. I won't link them here because there are probably some pretty embarrassing things I published on the internet as a high schooler and undergrad student, but I'm sure you could find those sites if you Googled me hard enough. Check out my About Me page to see how I put myself out there now!

I've always been a journaler and external processor with written word. Does anyone remember the Xanga pages from the early 2000s? Here's to hoping I made that private or that has gone away! I then transition to Blogger and then Facebook and Twitter became the medium of choice and long form writing really kind of died amongst my friend group. But trust me, there was a time when I would sit for hours and read pages and pages of things my peers had written.

I did have a classroom blog for a little while during my first years of teaching, but eventually I gave that up too. The evolution of Class Dojo really made that obsolete when I could basically have a class Instagram feed for parents with built in chat and calendaring features.

That brings me to the point of this blog... setting up a website is not what it used to be. Having set up numerous blogs (even one for a literary character for a course in undergrad), I was not concerned about setting up this site. I'm very tech savvy and can usually figure things out. I'd used WordPress before and remembered it was fairly easy. I did not feel like researching several different providers and thought, "How hard can it be?" My, how times have changed. I found it to be very cumbersome and I was not able to intuitively set something up that was aesthetically pleasing... and I run a VA business on the side where I work with several different pieces of tech and programs. I lost almost two days on this because I was determined I could make it work. Not sure if you would call that Growth Mindset or just stubbornness.

I migrated over to Wix, where I was also met with a little bit of a challenge trying to find the free domain. It is hidden, as I imagine they want you to purchase a domain and higher tiered plan. Eventually I figured it out and here we are! Welcome to the Techy Texas Teacher! I am excited to be on this EdTech Application Journey and can't wait to share the things that I am learning.

Have you experienced challenges with Wordpress.com? I know most people prefer the open source version over at wordpress.org, but I am definitely not ready for that yet. 😊 What is your favorite blog hosting site?