I’m taking a graduate level course on Technology & Society, and for my Big Term Assignment, I’ve decided to try something a little non-traditional. Taking a page out of Alan Levine’s great playbook, I’d like to ask people to respond to a simple question:
How do YOU connect online?
More info is available over on the project website – but the short version is that I need people to respond to the question, however they interpret it, in whatever format they’re comfortable responding. I will assemble the responses into a narrative which will be published on November 30, 2009.
Please spread the URL – I need as many different responses and perspectives as possible.
Mostly via my blog & Twitter. On a one-to-one basis, I use Skype. For project work I use Google Docs
in order of use ATM
Twitter
email
Skype video and chat
facebook
wiki
video conferencing
buzzword.acrobat.com
yahoo chat
mostly this is done on my iPhone as it is so quick and easy to get into sites no booting up of computer, but desktop is better to follow links from twiter!
I connect with people that have the same interests than me. It doesn’t mean that I ignore people because they may like different topics than mine but it means that nowadays with all this strong facility to connect to everyone and everywhere I really need to be selective. For instance, I am having a great experience in using twitter and I have a great PNL there and I’m trying strongly to keep the number of people I follow between 100-150. Why? Because I do follow them and I’m really interested in what they are talking about. I’m not there to waste time or to try to be famous but to share, to learn, to discuss different points of view. So it doesn’t matter – in my case – the number of followers that I have or the number of people that I follow – but the quality, the interests, the activities of these people. I keep in the internet the same rule as a face-to-face interaction. I mean, I will interact, keep in touch and “connect” with people I really like and appreciate.
By the way, good question!
In my role as a Technology Facilitator, I have to search for links, resources, and project ideas daily. I use Twitter as a major filter in finding things that may be useful to pass on to my Faculty and system. I also have a strong North Carolina Ed Tech group on SKYPE that shares much, meets frequently, and discusses things that work in our schools. It has also led to some collaborative projects with other NC schools.
I limit my Twitter account to following those in Technology or Education for the most part.
Well, if you’d asked me this a year ago I would have spouted off a list of online social technologies I use regularly to interact with people online. But now I hear the question differently – I know understand “connecting” to be a question more about how I develop relationships with people virtually that are every much as rich as my face to face connections (well, expect not being able to hug them as often).
I connect by putting myself out there, in as uncensored way as I feel I can. Showing people not just the intellectual/work side of myself, which has always been easy for me to do and played to my strengths, but increasingly how working through personal things influences my thinking and work.
I connect by trying to acknowledge when people are doing the same. By trying to validate, comfort, question, listen.
I connect by examining my reactions to things I come across and figuring out what I really think and feel about them before reacting, and try to own my reactions (and not read too much into others).
I connect by becoming more mindful of the assumptions I am making about others, assumptions that can be exacerbated (but at other times lessened) by te interactions happening mostly in a virtual space.
Not sure this is what you are looking for. But it’s what your question brought up for me. Cheers, Scott
(oh, and I likely alienate the spelling nazis by not spell checking my comments. Sorry! 😉
How do I connect?
well that is definitely a great question!
I connect via different communication channels, but it is not so much the channels that matter, but the people who use them, and the learning opportunities they create while doing so [otherwise you probably wouldn’t see me on twitter – as at the beginning I was quite cynical about it. It seemed so silly, yet, it is probably one of the communication platforms I use more often these days. 😉
But I still like blogging (although I am not blogging as often as I should. It helps me think and connect to others through my and their thoughts (does this make sense…? I see learning as a process based on shared understanding…)
Ok, so we have twitter,blogging (probably my first real webpresence, after the development of a boring website using frontpage, which I had no idea if people were visiting or not – so the connection was not really visible)…what else?
Ah… skype – it gets me so connected! It’s a brilliant too! 🙂
Then there is the google kit. (g)email is still very important to keep connection – both professionally and socially. I am still not sure where googlewave will take us, but mailing groups still work for me! 🙂
those are the ones I use on a regualr baisis.
Then there is also others such as Facebook (am there because my most of my network is too, and you don’t want to miss out on the conversation. I like ning a lot too.
Basically everything that bridges the connection works for me, as long as it is not very time-consuming. For instance, Second Life still hasn’t worked for me… still too demanding…
I hope this makes sense. I decided to write at the rhythm of my reflections…and they were flowing fast. 😉
Good luck with your project!
E-mail, some blogs I like, barely Facebook at all except professionally. I’m much, much, MUCH less active than I used to be. I blog intermittently. Don’t Twitter or read it at all.
I use a lot of services
Twitter, email, Skype, Google Docs, Google Wave, Facebook, Wikispaces, Video Conf, Google Chat, Zoho, Delicious, Myspace, SMS, MMS, iPhone 3gs, Dropbox, Mobile Me, Youtube, Blogs, Flickr, Wikipedia, and thats all I currently remember at the moment. I don’t have my laptop open to see the others.
email, Skype, Youtube, Wikipedia and other
I’m at work and probably forgot something
I just copy and pasted Ross’s input, deleting and adding a few.
Twitter, email, Skype, Google Docs, Google Wave, Facebook, Wikispaces, Video Conf, , Zoho, Delicious, Myspace, SMS, MMS, iPhone, Dropboks, Youtube, Blogs, Flickr, Wikipedia, MeetingMaker, eMusic, Second Life, Ning, Google sites, Google presentations, website forms.
How do I connect online? With difficulty!
I live in a rural area…no cell phone service so iPhone is not an option. No high speed Internet at my house although it is available within 20 km in either direction. I work from home, so my connections are both professional and personal.
Email and Yahoo Messenger are my main sources of contact. I use Elluminate Live! a lot both as a moderator and participating in online professional development. I love Skype, including video with family.
I connect with other people who share my interest in photography via Flickr and websites such as Digital Photography School.
Receiving the NY Times in my inbox every day keeps me in touch with what is going on in the world, and I share bits and pieces with others I think might be interested.
A couple of months ago I created a Facebook account, but I really don’t know what to do with it. I have never used Twitter or many of the other fashionable tools (I used to be on the leading edge of technology and now feel hopelessly left behind).
Best of luck with your project.