This website is an archive of several older blogs that were stopped or killed for various reasons. Each older blog was given it’s own category and banner that you can read about below.
Innovate LINK (April 8, 2016 – July 12, 2017) – This blog was actually a Known site that was imported into WordPress. When I worked at the LINK Research Lab, we started this site as a way to explore emerging technologies with quick posts. The idea was not to just gush about cool technology, but to critically think about the pros and cons of each one.
The original Known site can be found here: https://innovate.linkresearchlab.org/
Matt’s Known (September 24, 2014 – February 9. 2015) – Known is part blog, part social media service management. I experimented with it some on my own website for a few months. Mostly I just pulled in EduGeek Journal blog posts and tweets. But I did write a few paragraph-long thoughts on a few articles that have been imported here.
Your Official Portal to Geekdom (October 31, 2006 – December 27, 2012) – I know what you are thinking. “I’m not a geek, so this stuff isn’t for me.” Whatever – we all have a geek inside of us, just waiting to break free. This category is where I “geeked-out” about many subjects. So, whether it was movies, music, religion, science, technology, or other random stuff in the world that I liked (new or old), you will probably found me writing about it here. Educational-related issues were moved to my Ed Tech blog EduGeek Journal.
The original blog can be found here: http://grandeped.blogspot.com
The Beggar’s Table (July 17, 2007 – May 8, 2011) – My thoughts on spiritual matters of any kind. Despite how good we try to make ourselves look, the truth is we are all really wretched, miserable, poor, and blind. We are all beggars, whether we know it or not. When you boil it down, life is basically one beggar telling another beggar where to find the Bread. Pull up a chair to the table and enjoy the meal. The original blog can be found here: http://beggarstable.blogspot.com (Revelation 3:17; Matthew 5:3)
The image above was one that I took while on a trip to Mumbai, India. Mumbai used to be called Bombay. We were at an area of the city where there was an unusually high concentration of Hindu temples. This fountain was considered to be a source of holy water. This picture reminds me of how every day, so many people are trying to find something – anything – to bring something “holy” in to their lives…. even if it really ends up being a polluted spring. You can actually see this exact spot on this Google Map.
Random Musings (the original Matt’s Musings and Meanderings) (August 21, 2007 – December 10, 2010) – Random thoughts on anything else that doesn’t fit The Beggar’s Table or Your Portal to Geekdom. This started off as a work blog, but I liked the idea so much that I decided to make it my main blog. The original work blog can be found here: http://blog.uta.edu/~matt/
So I took the work blog, combined it with The Beggar’s Table and Your Portal to Geekdom, and created a website that was an archive of all of them while continuing a few of them for a while. Each old blog became it’s own category, with the original Matt’s Musings and Meanderings transitioning into this tag of Random Musings and the entire website itself being called “Matt’s Musings and Meanderings” (because I liked that titled). That old combined blog can be found here: http://grandeped.wordpress.com
My ID Blog (January 25, 2015 – April 19, 2015) Course work that was submitted as partial fulfillment of the requirements for the CECS 5510 – Tech-Based Learning Environments class that I took as part of my Doctoral degree program at the University of North Texas.
The original blog can be found here: https://myidblog.wordpress.com/
Down the Rabbit Hole of CECS 6514 (June 5, 2014 – July 26, 2014) Course work that was submitted as partial fulfillment of the requirements for the CECS 6514 – Scaling Methods class that I took as part of my Doctoral degree program at the University of North Texas.
The original blog can be found here: https://mycecs6514.wordpress.com/
My CECS 6100 (January 19, 2014 – May 4, 2014) Course work that was submitted as partial fulfillment of the requirements for the CECS 6100 – Scaling Methods class that I took as part of my Doctoral degree program at the University of North Texas.
The original blog can be found here: https://mycecs6100.wordpress.com/
CECS 6010 / CECS 6020 (September 19, 2012 – April 20, 2013) Course work that was submitted as partial fulfillment of the requirements for the CECS 6010 – Theory of Instructional Technology and CECS 6020 – Advanced Instructional Design Models and Strategies classes that I took as part of my Doctoral degree program at the University of North Texas. The classes were taught by the same instructor and were kind of continuations of each other, so I used the same blog with different categories for each class.
The original blog can be found here: https://mcrosslin.wordpress.com/blog/
My Tumblr Blog (January 3-11, 2011; May 4, 2014) – Very briefly for a couple of weeks in 2011 I tried Tumblr, and then posted once again in 2014. Tumblr is pretty cool, but I just never latched on to it. I also called this one Matt’s Musings and Meanderings, with the tag line “Random thoughts that probably go no where even though they will probably appear to at first.” The original blog is here: https://grandeped-blog.tumblr.com/
Soundings: Best Practices in Teaching and Technology (February 22, 2010 – June 21, 2010) – This was a group blog created by a former director of mine Pete Smith. It was designed to be a group blog for faculty and staff at UTA to share best practices in teaching. Pete started the blog on February 8, 2010. My first post was on the 22nd. It went on an off until September 2010, and there were a couple attempts to restart it in 2012 and 2014. Many of the posts on this blog were cross-posted at EduGeek Journal; some were modified cross posts. So I kept the original posts and updated posts, created re-directs for those that were cross-posted, and even decided to save a few comments that I liked on the other contributors‘ posts. The BPN stands for “Best Practices Network.”
You can see an archive of most of the original blog here: https://web.archive.org/web/20101118043140/http://blog.uta.edu/bpn/
TxDLA 2008 Blog (March 24-27, 2008) – A few blog entries that I did for the 2008 annual meeting of the Texas Distance Learning Association. Some of the first few blog posts have been lost, but all three episodes of the podcast were preserved.
Ed-Tech Trends (September 21, 2007 – February 6, 2008) – This is an archive of a short-lived blog that I did for the UTA Distance Education department.
The original blog was here: http://blog.uta.edu/edtechtrends/
Mercy Place Blog (February 13, 2007 – August 2, 2008) – Another short-lived blog that was for a church I used to attend. This blog is no longer online.
EDTC 6350 Reflective Journal (June 8-23, 2006) – A class project journal that was submitted as partial fulfillment of the requirements for the EDTC 6350 – The IT Consultant class that I took as part of my Master’s degree program at the University of Texas at Brownsville.
The original blog can be found here: https://mcrosslin.blogspot.com/
U Monthly Blog (June 17 – December 20, 2005) – A very short-lived blog for a magazine I wrote for in Waco, Texas. Really only two entries and one micro-entry, but I still wanted to archive them here because I really enjoyed writing for the magazine.
Katie and Matt Blog (August 19, 2003 – November 23, 2008) – This was my first blog. Much of it was hidden behind passwords for a decade. It was a mixture of remodeling and moving journals, personal updates, and thoughts on all kinds of things. Eventually, those random thoughts became their own blogs. I decided to pull out the remodeling journals and random thoughts to archive them here. Of course, they are also edited to remove anything too personal, repetitive, or boring.
Living Blogs
In case you are interested, I still blog from time to time at my living blogs. If they ever die, they will probably be moved here.
EduGeek Journal (started March 12, 2007) – Proud sponsor of your future. Our goal is to critically examine educational technology so that educators stay one step ahead of the Joneses. We like to pour over new ideas and dream about what could possibly happen in the future in the world of education. This started off as a group blog in 2007, but I am the lone survivor.
Metamodern Faith (started September 21, 2011) – Exploring faith, philosophy, politics, science, reason, and God from a progressive metamodernist perspective. Basically the successor to The Beggar’s Table, Mercy Place Blog, and the occasional spiritual post on the Katie and Matt blog. Originally called Ecclesia Extraneus (“church outsider”), that titled proved to be too hard to pronounce or spell (for me more than others).
Monsoon River (started July 9, 2019) – Musings and Meanderings on Music, Nostalgia Culture, and Modern Geekery. Basically the successor to this website, but focused on the stuff I used to cover in Your Official Portal to Geekdom. This time I look at music that is outside of the typical radio fodder from around the world, examining nostalgia culture, and thinking through the pros and cons of modern geekery.