This Blog is Now a Book!

When I started writing this blog in 2006, I was living in Canada on a teaching exchange.  It was a big year for the social web, with blogs, podcasts and the birth of the Web2.0 revolution really hitting the mainstream of public consciousness that year, and it was good to be in the North American time zone.  I'd dabbled with blogs a little in 2005 when I was encouraging some of my students to use a blog as a diary to document some of their Year 12 major works. But this actual blog you're reading now was born on August 26, 2006, partly as a way for me to jump into the idea of blogging to explore what it was all about, and partly to start documenting my own thoughts and ideas.

During the first few years I blogged a lot, about all kinds of random stuff.  But gradually I started to find my voice, a voice that felt authentic. My posts became more focused on things that mattered to me both personally and professionally. I learned to have opinions and to not be afraid to express them. And eventually, I began to find an audience of readers who would use the comments under each post to respond, discuss, agree and push back. While the things I wrote might have been sparked of ideas in my own head, it was the comments and conversations that became the real heart of each blogpost.

Like most things, the blog has gone through cycles of activity. It started out as me basically talking to myself and thinking out loud, followed by some "golden years" of what I think was some really good writing about some significant ideas, some periods where I wrote much less, to experiencing the effect of social media and the gradual decline in long form writing and engagement in vigorous conversation on blogs.

As 2025 drew towards the end, I realised that I've been writing here for almost 20 years. And I'm quite proud of having 20 years of ideas, thoughts and learning, all gathered together in one place. Some of the things I wrote over those years have been somewhat trivial and ephemeral, but many have not. Many have, I think, stood the test of time, at least in principle. As someone who has written a lot about technology in education, it's inevitable that some of the specifics of the technologies have changed over time, but as I look back through this body of work, I feel like many of the bigger ideas about education, learning and thinking about our world are still just as relevant today.

So I decided to gather together some of my favourite posts and publish them in an actual book. Not for you necessarily, but for myself. In the same way that I have always written for myself as a way of thinking out loud, the publication of a book is equally just for myself. Call it a vanity project, but I wanted to consolidate some of the last 20 years of some of my best writing (at least to me) into one place, and maybe leave it as a bit of a legacy for the day that either my blog or myself are no longer around.

There were over 500 posts to choose from, but I pulled out 129 of my favourites for the book. By favourites, I mean the ones that I felt the proudest of, the ones that still ring true to me, the ones that sparked the greatest conversations, or just the ones that help tell the story of the past 20 years in educational technology. It's not a coincidence that the years 2006 to 2025 saw a huge upheaval in technology, in education and in society. From the beginnings of Web2.0, through the rise of the social web, to the emergence of social media, to these exciting times of Artificial Intelligence, a lot has happened, and I've been lucky to not only live through it, but to document it in a very personal way.

Looking back, one of the things that really stood out to me was how the start of the blog was full of enthusiasm and excitement for the possibilities of the social web, and the promises it offered to bring people together, share ideas and democratise humanity's ability to express ideas and share creativity. But the latter part of the blog explores some of the disappointment and disillusion that social media and the billionaire boys' club seems to have wrought on society, and how in many ways it ended up dividing us into warring tribes and bringing out the worst of us. As I read back through the first few chapters and the last few chapters I felt it described a fascinating arc of technological promise and peril. Much of what's in the middle helps describe and explain how we got there. Scattered throughout the book are insights, stories, ideas and explanations behind some of the biggest changes in education and technology over that tumultuous two decades.  There's no doubt that time gives perspective. I think having a long term perspective definitely changes the way one looks at these rapid changes we are living through today. If nothing else, I hope this book can give some of that perspective.

I started using one of those blog-to-book services to convert the blog to a book, but wasn't all that impressed with the end result, and I was especially unimpressed with the cost; it was very expensive just to create a single book. So instead I pulled out my chosen posts into a text file and imported them into Adobe InDesign, where I did all the layout and design myself. I then exported as a PDF and uploaded to the Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) service. It's a very straightforward process, and the resulting book cost a fraction of the blog-to-book service, and it published for sale to Amazon both as a paperback and Kindle format.

Each post became a single chapter - some long, some short - and it makes the book easy to read. This is not a start-at-the-beginning-and-read-to-the-end kind of book. You can, hopefully, just pick it and read any chapter (post) on its own. I only included the posts, not the comment threads, as the book would have been far too long if I did.  But I included a link at the end of each chapter to the original post if the reader wants to visit the actual post and see the conversations that ensued.

I want to point out that the book is all my work, and none of it was written by AI, although I did get a little help from Gemini with ideas for the cover artwork which I then made myself in Adobe Illustrator. The end result is a book that I feel really pleased with. It was something I did for myself, for my own selfish reasons, and I'm very happy with it. It's for sale on Amazon, with no expectations that anyone will buy it (but thank you to the few people that have so far!)

And thanks especially to the many people who were part of this blog's journey since 2006. To the many people that read, commented, debated, argued, agreed and shared over the years, this blog belongs to all of you too.

Perhaps the best summary of the book is from the blurb on the back page...

"This book represents a twenty-year time capsule, following the digital revolution in education that unfolded in the first quarter of the 21st century.

Spanning posts from 2006 to 2025, this collection documents a personal journey through the chaotic, often exhilarating, evolution of technology and teaching as it happened.

The author's journey is unique: a trajectory that runs from art teacher to network manager to technology integrator in the classroom trenches, through the adventures of global consulting, and ultimately into a program manager role with the education team at Google. As an award-winning Google Certified Innovator and founding Adobe Education Leader, he's seen every trend arrive, occasionally stick, and sometimes disappear as quickly as it arrived.

This book serves as a vital historical record and a sharp critique, juxtaposing the soaring promises of early EdTech with the bureaucratic realities of today. It exposes the enduring, frustrating gulf between the skills we value - creativity, curiosity, and critical thought - and the mechanical, outdated systems we still employ.

A blend of seasoned insight, frustrated reflection, and hopeful roadmap, this is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the last two decades of educational change and challenge the status quo to build a more powerful, meaningful, and relevant future for learning."

Learning is a Conversation by Chris Betcher is available in paperback and Kindle format on Amazon.

For anyone who has read this far, thank you. I have two signed copies of the paperback book to give away.  To be eligible, just leave a comment on this post. I'll select my favourite two comments and send you each a copy. I'll be in touch to get your postage details.  Thanks!