Multimembership Welcome and Introductions

Re: Multimembership Welcome and Introductions

by Jo Ann Hammond-Meiers -
Number of replies: 5
Hi Jeffery,
You make some good points -- with so much activity online with multiplememberships -- there is probably more time spent sharing that in much of our other f-to-f lives. I do eat with my husband and 16 year old son once a day -- and that's probably good these days. I do have lunches on occasion with my friends. Given that -- I spend hours on the computer -- courses, teaching, blogging, and researching. This is above and beyond my daily work as a psychologist who books clients 6 days a week with flexed hours. I have several professional organizations to which I belong and I enjoy interdisciplinary conversations -- in person and online. But managing them on top of everything else -- is a matter of setting priorities, not taking myself "so" seriously, and making sure I have vacations with my family. It is knowledge management, time management, computer management, clutter clearing and scheduling that helps me and I am gradually appreciating letting some things go and being more present and mindful of the moment. Jo Ann

(Edited by Sue Wolff - original submission Monday, 27 October 2008, 10:09 AM)

In reply to Jo Ann Hammond-Meiers

Re: Multimembership Welcome and Introductions

by Sue Wolff -
Welcome Heather, Jeffrey, and Jo Ann, and thanks for starting us off with some insights focused around people priorities.

Heather, I can relate to your comment about a low participation to join ratio, but wonder where the line would be drawn on what counts as participation. If we include a membership in our peripheral awareness, are we not participating? Your post reminded me of a diagram I made to illustrate my network involvement priorities, and it prompted a blog post.

Many things vie for our attention, but I liked what you said Jo, about "letting some things go and being more present in the moment." That goes with what Heather said about not feeling guilty.

Jeffrey, I was not surprised to hear you are more involved professionally online than f2f, but I did not know you considered yourself more involved socially online than f2f too. Jo alluded to needing to intentionally balance or she might feel that way. I think I have felt like you for the past few years now. Is it the nature of our professions that draw us out so easily online?
In reply to Jo Ann Hammond-Meiers

Re: Multimembership Welcome and Introductions

by Jeffrey Keefer -

Jo Ann, I really like how you stated that you are "gradually appreciating letting some things go and being more present and mindful of the moment." I think I need to make a mantra out of this . . .

I find myself spending much more time online with teaching, blogging, and the like than I do F2F (outside my full-time job) with other people. Interesting how the social and work and research and such have not only migrated online, but have come to dominate my online experience.

Even now, for example, I am teaching a graduate class that meets 6 hours a week (F2F) and an online class on top of that (apart from my full-time F2F job), and I find myself online to try to relax while blowing off steam with colleagues, many of whom I have never met F2F. Of course, meeting and working with others are no longer distance and time constrained.

I think our session here is very timely indeed!

In reply to Jeffrey Keefer

Re: Multimembership Welcome and Introductions

by Jo Ann Hammond-Meiers -
Jeffrey,
I think that many teachers and lifelong learners and others, are spending a lot more time online. We don't really know all the consequences of so much time online -- aside from having less time offline, more people having wrist injuries for mousing and typing without good ergonomics for job posture, etc.

One of my blogs I read this morning written by a grade 7 teacher -- a fellow student from the massively subscribed to CCK08 course (Connectivism and Connective Knowledge course with George Siemens and Stephen Downes), showed videos similar to the ideas expressed in "1984" book. I think there is so much happening online that one needs clones -- and one of the videos of zombie like followers -- reminded me of clones -- oops -- a little to close for comfort maybe. I think that we can all grow, but balance is key -- too much of any one diet does not a healthy person make.

At any rate, I think this Scope conference is great. Cheers, Jo Ann


In reply to Jo Ann Hammond-Meiers

Re: Multimembership Welcome and Introductions

by Jeffrey Keefer -

When you said "balance is key -- too much of any one diet does not a healthy person make," it made me think about our session's title and how this can really be subtitle:

Multimembership:  Balance for the Social Networker. 

In reply to Jeffrey Keefer

Re: Multimembership Welcome and Introductions

by Jo Ann Hammond-Meiers -
Hi Jeffery,
Yes that subtitle, indeed, is there in our Multimembership topic.
I'm picking up some of our balancing for the social networker include: 1) Skills to cope, 2) using our tags, 3) techniques for organization of memberships and knowledge management (KM), 4) using blogs as a process place for integration and re-processing, and 5) employing discretion and gateways.

Others anyone?
J