Tag Archives: community

Back to it

After a very restful March break, I’m back at it tomorrow. While the break was wonderful, and a part of me wants to just curl up in bed for another week, another part of me is excited for some busy normalcy.

It’s interesting, but I seem to get more of what I want done when I’ve got more on my plate… the very times that I wish I had more time, are the times when I get stuff done.

I’m looking forward to seeing staff and students. I’m looking forward to getting back into my morning workout routines. I’m looking forward to thinking about education in ways that I haven’t been too thoughtful about over the break.

The end of the year will come quickly now, and I know that in a few short months I’ll wonder where the time went. But for tomorrow, the focus will be catching up and connecting with my community, and then the ‘To Do’ list can officially start on Wednesday.

Face-to-face Conferences

While I’m looking forward to our Professional Development Day this coming Friday, I wouldn’t be being honest if I said that I wasn’t missing conferences. I’ll be attending from my laptop, alone in my office. I won’t be going to a large auditorium for a keynote, sitting next to friends, making lunch plans, geeking out in conversations with people I don’t usually get to see, making podcasts between sessions… there is a lot of appeal to engaging with connections beyond the sessions you go to at a conference.

For me, it usually includes meeting ‘digital friends’, people that I know from online/Twitter, whom I’ve never met before face-to-face or whom I have met, but less times than I can count on one hand. These connections invariably make the conference great for me. And not only do I get to meet these wonderful people, they tend to be people that like geeking out with me about what we’ve learned. If I go to a mediocre session, no problem, I can chat with someone who went to a better one. Go to a great session, and now I’ve got someone to share it with out loud, to help me solidify what I’ve learned.

But beyond the learning, there is the human connection. There is the opportunity to be with people I don’t get to see often but I enjoy their company. It’s about being with my tribe. I’ll enjoy the sessions on Friday, but I really look forward to a time in the future when I can once again go to a conference, pick up my swag, and connect with people that make the whole conference experience great!

Reflections from a 2-week social media vacation

No big aha moments. I had a few moments where I read something and my instinct was to share it on Twitter. I missed a chance to do a podcast with some friends I haven’t connected with in a while. And a former students and a few current students took some time to welcome me back with some ‘doctored’ images of me. (I’ve been uwuify’d.)

https://twitter.com/laefk/status/1358230779302580224

I think if I did this social media vacation 5 or 6 years ago, I would have missed it a lot more, but I don’t engage on social media nearly as much as I used to. Also, my school days tend to be long and I’m very rarely on social media at school, unless it’s for the school, or maybe while eating lunch. So, this self-imposed break really just stopped me from vegging out on TikTok when I’m tired, (I find it far more entertaining than TV and have a time limit on it so that it’s like watching a half-hour show).

I’m not sure if I’ll take a break like this again any time soon, but I also think that I might come back slowly. I’d also like to experiment and play a bit more with ClubHouse. I’m a huge fan of audio and I can see some real value in this new platform. If you haven’t heard of it yet… you will.

Welcome to Clubhouse

Well, I kind of broke my social media vacation a day early. I was invited into Clubhouse by Mike Slinger. For those of you that don’t know what Clubhouse is, it is a voice/conversation based social media platform where people create rooms where anyone can join and chat or listen. Moderators can run the room like a live podcast or as a room where they invite anyone in to join the conversation.

Very early this morning I joined a room, Connect EDU. The host, Giancarlo Brotto, quickly invited newcomers into the conversation to share their background.

I really see potential here. The sharing of voice is powerful. I can imagine people having some really great conversations ‘out loud and in the open’ but live with an audience who can raise their hand and contribute. I also see the potential for some strong community-building.

I had an idea for a text-based environment similar to this a few years ago. I imagined a private chat that is publicly viewable, and a side chat for the audience. Imagine two to five people having an in-depth Facebook-style text conversation but if you were reading from the outside, you couldn’t comment directly… the conversation is theirs, but that there was also a side panel for the audience. Then the people having the conversation could invite the audience in, if they see and like something in the audience chat.

Clubhouse does this with voice rather than text, and I think this new social media platform is going to explode! I’m reminded of radio call-in shows, and I can foresee some incredible communities being built. I’m not sure how much I’ll use it yet, but I’m pretty sure Clubhouse is going to be a platform you hear more and more about in the coming months.

The gift of giving

Recently my family was able to help out another family. It wasn’t something we did ourselves, a community of people stepped up to help, we simply coordinated the support and did our part to contribute.

There is both a selfless and a selfish aspect of giving. The selfless part is that you do something kind without wanting anything in return. The selfish part is that you feel really good doing it. That is the gift you get, when you give.

A while back I worked in a very needy community and I was always surprised to learn that some of the needy families were the same families that volunteered in soup kitchens or in the community regularly. They were happy to give their time to help others. I realized that they often received charity, understood how much it was valued, and wanted to do the same for others.

They understood the value of getting gifts and wanted to do the same for others. Not having money, they gave their time. Interestingly, I think that when you give your time, rather than just money, the gift you receive as the giver is greater.

It’s weird to talk about giving as a selfish act, perhaps the better word is rewarding. So I’ll end by saying that giving to others in need is a rewarding act, it feels good, and nourishes you as much as it does those in need.

Find ways to reward yourself by giving to others.

We are all in the same lifeboat

A few days ago I wrote about the state of limbo we are in, dealing with the coronavirus. I said,

My thoughts: If everything goes well, it could be September before we get close to vaccinating enough of the population to truly ease up on our personal restrictions. More likely, we are looking at January 2022. That’s another year away. I think things will get much better, but the path will be slower than everyone wants.

However I made an assumption that I’m starting to question. More and more I’m realizing that there are going to be too many ‘free riders‘, too many people not taking the vaccine. Too many people believing that the vaccine will cause more issues than the virus. Too many that think the virus isn’t serous enough in their age bracket. Too many people that misunderstand what a vaccine is and what it does.

Without enough of a herd immunity, the virus will continue to spread in a way that means our lifestyle pre-pandemic are not likely to return for years. Virus mutations can and will spread, and each mutation has the potential to spread more easily and/or mutate enough to make vaccines less effective.

It’s like we are all in the same lifeboat and it has tiny little holes in it. Vaccinated people plug the holes, non-vaccinated people don’t think the holes are a serious enough problem. These free riders aren’t doing their job plugging the holes in the boat. And because of that, the boat keeps getting wetter.

I’m shocked every time I hear someone say that they won’t get vaccinated. I know there are ‘anti-Vaxers’ who link vaccines to false claims and negative propaganda, but I can’t say I’ve met or know too many people I’d put in this category. What I am seeing is vaccine hesitant people who think that vaccines for Covid-19 are unreliable, or not significantly tested, or even dangerous. It is this group that scares me. The crackpot anti-vaxer community is a fringe group, too large for my liking but not larger enough to endanger heard immunity from happening… however the vaccine hesitant group is way bigger than I thought, and this group will undermine the ability to reach herd immunity; to keep our lifeboat dry enough not to be concerned.

Only a few days ago I was feeling like I was being pessimistic saying the earliest rerun to ‘normal’ was January 2022, but now I’m thinking that’s terribly optimistic. We could be stuck in this leaky lifeboat for a very long time.

What the new year does and does not bring

The new year brings an end to a difficult year.

The new year does not bring any tangible changes as a result of our planet crossing an arbitrary point in our rotation around the sun.

The new year brings hope, for a heard immunity against Covid-19, thanks to a number of different vaccines.

The new year does not bring any immediate relief from the spread of Covid-19, with a greater threat of spread due to a more contagious new variant coming out of the UK.

The new year brings resolutions and promises of self-improvement and ambitious goals.

The new year does not bring any promise of fulfilling these new goals without a dedicated effort to change habits and behaviours.

The new year brings a political and ideological shift in power in the United States.

The new year does not bring a promise of less divisiveness in the American people who seem too ideologically divided.

The new year brings inconsistent approaches to dealing with the virus, from being scarily too open to being confusingly too locked down.

The new year does not bring any promise of clarity about how best to deal with the virus while we wait for widespread vaccine distribution.

The new year brings continued paranoia and conspiracy filled misinformation, shared virally on social media.

The new year does not bring any way to meaningfully combat the spread of bad ideas.

The new year brings anticipation for a better year than 2020.

The new year brings promise of post pandemic world.

The new year brings opportunity for positive change.

The new year brings us more of the same, unless we choose to think, say, and act differently.

Let’s be different, better, more loving, kind, and caring… to ourselves, our community, and our environment. We do not get to choose the world we live in, but we do get to choose our impact on it and those in our community we share it with.

A global community

One love, one heart 
Let’s get together and feel all right. ~ Bob Marley

I used to think that we would reach a time in my lifetime where we could all be seen first and foremost as citizens of the world. That people would eventually be able to get a global passport and travel with a universal identity as global citizens. It was naive, but I thought it would happen.

With the rise of social media, I thought we were getting closer. I saw how social media extended the reach of individuals to find others of similar minds and interests. The internet extended our reach and our ability to understand others, whether they thought like us or not.

But while understanding our differences can help us see that we really are more alike than we think, differences in core values separate us further. Religions divide us more than anything else. That’s ironic and sad. Faith in a higher being sectionalizes humanity into narrow groupings that undermine our ability to focus on the well-being of our global community.

What would it take to go beyond the divisiveness of religious dogmatism?

What would help us see that as a species we have more to gain from being cooperative rather than confrontational?

What could bring us all together as a global community of citizens that care for our species and our world?

I fear that people will try with tyranny before they try with love.

Connecting digitally

I had a chat with a friend a couple days ago and he said, “I’m just looking forward to joining you in a pub for some chicken wings and beers.”

I was thinking of this last night when I reflected on our friendship over the last 30+ years. We’ve actually had conversations before where we said, ‘The next time we get together, we actually need to do something besides sit and have a drink together.’

It’s a small thing but it puts what we are going through in perspective. We are social beings and we want to connect in any way that we can right now.

I had a dinner meeting last night. We all left our different work locations, independently picked up food, went to our own homes, and turned on Zoom to be together digitally for the meeting. We played a game of Kahoot to start, and then we went through the agenda. No, it wasn’t as good as being together, but it was still good. It was wonderful to ‘see’ people that I haven’t seen in a while. There were a few laughs, and it was definitely worthwhile to plan it as a dinner meeting, even if we were sitting separately in different houses.

This is a time when we need to stay connected while respectfully staying apart. And this isn’t just a 2020 thing… we will be doing this very well into 2021 if not starting this way in 2022 as well. That’s a long time to be socially isolated. But if this happened 20 years ago we would not be able to stream a video meeting with over 30 people sharing video. We would only have been able to share voices.

Now it’s easy to connect both ‘face-to-face’ while also keeping your distance via digital tools. The easiest of which is your phone. Last night I had a FaceTime conversation with my daughter. It was our longest chat since she last come to see us. Interestingly enough, I think it was as long of a conversation as I had with her while she was here.

I don’t know why, but the lyrics from Billy Joel’s song Piano Man just came to mind, “We are sharing a drink called loneliness, which is better than drinking alone.” I guess we are substituting physically connecting with digitally connecting, and while it’s not the same as meeting in person, it is better than being even more isolated.

We don’t need to feel alone, if we make the effort to connect… from a distance.

Not normal any time soon

I’m thrilled that Pfizer has results that their vaccine is very effective. I think it’s fantastic that there is at least one other company with equally positive results. This is great news. What it isn’t, is news that things will be back to normal soon.

Best case scenario as I see it, the vaccine will be out in March or April. Then the priorities of who gets one first will be very evident. Of course the elderly, immune deficient, and health support workers will be top of the list. But then comes the ugly truth: The rich, the famous, and the high profile sports athletes will be next. There will be a lot of negative news about this, but it’s the reality of the world we live in.

It will be the end of 2021 before widespread distribution is possible and we will be able to see what life after Covid-19 looks like at the start of 2022.

I’d like to be wrong, and want to see things happen faster, but I’m not holding my breath. 2021 will not be normal, we won’t know what that will look like for another year.

Until then, keep doing the things you need to do to be safe. Diligence in care for ourselves and our community is what the ‘current normal’ needs to be for a while longer.