I love this statement and the feeling of so many positive possibilities from Jacinta Gascoigne made after her thorough exploration of social networking environments
“Do you have any idea how refreshing it has been to read some of the material and read posts, reflecting how positive and excited others are about their own ventures and the value they place in the networks and connections made along the way, allowing for greater learning, collaboration, and on it goes.
People are excited, curious, engaged, sharing, caring, love the sense of adventure despite so many unknowns.”
Here is one of Jacinta’s spaces where she talks about cyberbullying and social networking
Twitter offers a very finely grained networking, 140 characters at a time, ideal if you are trying to work with someone, or want the feel of having people around you as you learn and work. I have seen my teenagers hang around online with friends as they do their homework together using MSN, and I use gmail and skype to keep open dialogues running with some colleagues. Twitter seems to take this even further as you connect to the minutiae of another persons day.
As a mother I can see the good and bad of this – staying in close communication with children from work is good, having even more opportunity to be interrupted at work with “what is for dinner” and “where are all my socks” not so good.
Twitter offers a very finely grained networking, 140 characters at a time, ideal if you are trying to work with someone, or want the feel of having people around you as you learn and work. I have seen my teenagers hang around online with friends as they do their homework together using MSN, and I use gmail and skype to keep open dialogues running with some colleagues. Twitter seems to take this even further as you connect to the minutiae of another persons day.
As a mother I can see the good and bad of this – staying in close communication with children from work is good, having even more opportunity to be interrupted at work with “what is for dinner” and “where are all my socks” not so good.
2 comments:
Thanks for the kind words. I joined twitter a while back, but in my rush to try and learn about everything at once, forgot to tag it and forgot about it.
Great to have a reminder. I am fascinated as to how it all works from the back end however your comment below:
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'Twitter offers a very finely grained networking, 140 characters at a time, ideal if you are trying to work with someone, or want the feel of having people around you as you learn and work'.
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I have never heard or read anywhere before of a social networking tool that not only provides numerous features and functions, allowing us all to sit and hit each new button, and see what happens (I am not one for manuals these days), but one that in fact, can offer a feeling - one of company, support and connectedness enhancing your learning and working experience.
I am looking forward to experiencing this for myself, as any of us, coming to terms with or even grasping only the most common of the SNT, the time spent in front of the computer, creating, managing and then connecting with others, for me at least involves working the majority of the time, in isolation.
I may get lost in my myspace profiles, listening to music, reading what has come in, replying to my emails or posting a blog - which I write and as I begin a brief post, it often morphs into a short story of some kind and the solitude at times is nice - a little escapism at times from the outside world where you have little control thus entering your own world, your creation, your responsibility, your friends, your colours - your own space.
Different moods and different tasks you are involved in, within your space however, can be a little mundane, routine, 'have to do', you may have had let's say and interesting day, and your mood is a little flat. Music often helps a little, but when you are feeling a little disconnected and 'blah', having the feeling of others, doing, sharing, finding gems that all are excited about, basically I am guessing, providing you with an extension to the online world you have operated in for some time, adding 'feelings, emotional responses - comfort, support or maybe inclusion.
I will report back after I have worked it all out and experienced for myself. Another adventure and already my head is swimming, with ideas and how we could embed such a tool, or create other tools, that may also provide learners, in distance education, remote locations, disengaged and disconnected youth and others, with an environment that every feature and function on our wishlist exists, provides the flexibility to update, as new tools, widgets etc appear + provides the learners with a constant sense of community, connectedness, company, security and more and more. You could turn them off, if you wished to isolate and immerse yourself in your learning or work online at the click of the mouse, or engage the same way - you are the driver.
Here I stop, as what I said what true, I get carried away and write diatribes.
Off I go to twitter land - wish me luck.
Jacinta
Okay a quick update on my twitter encounter. I get the feeling that I may have missed a little something, so a little plea for help. I have no friends but I do have 1 follower - why is the follower a pornographic twitter????
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