Thursday 10 March 2011

Facebook and reflection

I do have a Facebook account, but following on from my last post I do find I have so much information to sift through on a day to day basis, I'm reticent to spend more time on social networking.  We do try and post information to the Learning Grid's account but with varying success.  I think with all these tools it is useful to persist with them as we need to be using all our means to communicate with our target audience and as apparently it takes 14 times of doing something before it becomes a habit.  I'm still at the "frustration" stage but am looking forward to when it becomes 2nd nature.
I have been meaning to get a Twitter account so am pleased that 23 things has encouraged me to do so.  I wish the programme had not been launched in the busiest term for the TG and LG especially as it was not planned for in AR objectives.  It does seem a lot of work, even if it's a worthy cause.

A twitterer at last

I've been surprised at how frustrating Twitter has been.  It didn't help that when I tried to sign up for an account on Sunday (really difficult to fit 23 things into the working week) I wasted 40 minutes on believing Twitter when it said I hadn't created a unique user name.  Turns out it was the netbook as when I used my daughter's machine a simple username that I had already tried worked.  Didn't actually get the email from twitter so reset up an account using my ntl email (wasn't even in the junk - thanks to Hannah for the tip).  Not very satisfactory.  Looks on Twitter as though I do have two accounts but I cannot access one.  Will try and tidy that up this weekend. 
The retweet function will clearly generate lots of tweets.  I'm reserving judgement on whether this is a good thing.  Linkages are good but, there must be so much duplication. 
My youngest has given up Facebook for Lent.  She recognises she's "addicted" to it (her words).  Will she get withdrawal symptons?  More likely she will be calmer and less grumpy.  Or is that wishful thinking on my part?  I wonder if we should be teaching our children mindfulness (Asaf Federman has been running some very interesting sessions in the Teaching Grid on this form of meditation to improve concentration) to compensate for Web 2.0 and provide periods of calm amongst the "busyness" and "noise" of Facebook, Twitter etc.  As great as social networking is - and I do think it can be fantastic, there just isn't enough downtime unless you are very disciplined.
Oh well, I will press on with the rest of the programme.  Could do with more time to devote to this.