First of all: what brings me to this class is the pursuit of higher education in the hope that it will set me up for teaching positions both as a Coast Guard Officer and also when I re-enter civilian life after my military career is over. There are opportunities to teach while progressing through the USCG ranks. There's, of course, the Coast Guard Academy in New London, CT (not that they admitted me as an Undergrad, but I hold no grudge! -- I attended the rival academy, got to see the world from the bridges of Merchant ships and loved every minute of it!) and there's also a training campus in Yorktown, Virginia that specializes in teaching professional/technical knowledge.
Secondly: one other thing that I became aware of within the past year was the presence of internet tools and web-based repositories of information and discussion that could prove helpful in my day-to-day job. Some of these have even gained CG acceptance (i.e., are available for use on our workstations) including some wiki-based databases of profession-specific knowledge, experiences and best practices as well as RSS feeds that update us to newly promulgated regulations, guidance and policies. I hope that the lessons that I learn in this class will provide me with a greater understanding of the possible uses for some of these online tools and will also set me up for a varied array of jobs (I will be transferring in 2012 and you just never know what positions are going to be open!).
So that is why I am here.
Now it's time to spend a bit of time with the family. My wife informed me that I had to blog about her so I guess that I'll say that she's a lawyer and I always do what she says!!!
Good Night!
Bill, good goals - I think you'll see many tools. Do you foresee the possibility of training within the Coast Guard?
ReplyDeleteI don't believe that the CG systems will ever be open enough to allow some of the social media items to be accessed from our workstations. I would love to see technologies like Google Docs embraced by the CG but I think we are stuck with the emailed attachments for the rest of my career at least!
ReplyDeleteThanks for the comment.
Will
Will, great blog!
ReplyDeleteBased on what you learn in class, do you think at anytime you will pitch any of these new technologies to the Coast Guard to show how benefical they can be to them?