Monday 10 November 2008

Time and priorities


I am not happy with myself. Once again I have let myself get into the far too fast lane of constantly feeling short of time. It's not that I don't enjoy most of what my days are filled with, but sadly I simply have to say no to a lot of activities that I'd like to involve myself with. It seems to me that my priorities lie with F2F interaction over online networking.

I absolutely loved our 2-week EU student exchange in northern Spain. I think - at least hope - that the students felt the same. Something seems to have clicked in some of their heads during the intercultural experience, and further trips and visits are being planned.


The Spanish exchange completed, I am now looking forward to the 7th AEC-NET conference in Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia, in just a month's time. It means a lot of work with preparing presentations and project introductions before finally getting onto the plane and on my way. But I do enjoy catching up with old friends and meeting many new educators from Asia and Europe. I hope that we will manage to start good online projects for this school year, which at least for me seems to be more successful after the initial F2F meeting.


Unfortunately, I have had to put the interesting MOOC, Connectivism and Connective Knowledge, on the back burner. Although I have followed some of the discussions and blog posts, on and off, I haven't participated actively myself, nor had time to get down to the weekly readings. In other words, I I have become 'a lurker'. (I actually quite dislike that description - as though I was a predator hiding in the shadows ready to pounce on somebody as soon as the opportunity arises.) When everyday life with family and friends calls, my online activities will have to wait. I feel this makes me an unfit, unreliable, no good online partner. In fact, I'm wondering how people can manage full-time offline and online lives. Ultimately, I'm questioning whether I should ever try to be anything but a lurker, when my participation is so erratic!

Photo: no time for that now by only alice on flickr

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