
Originally published at CogDogBlog » virtuallyconnecting (see it there)
All it takes is alarm clocks and coffee. No, alarm clocks, coffee, and a relatively small group of interesting, geographically dispersed people. And some google hangouts. And now a Slack with snarky bots. Last week the geometrically growing Virtually Connecting was set up for several live sessions from participants at the ALT Conference (Association for Learning Technology) in Manchester (That’s England or the United Kingdom for the geographically impaired). Many points of interest with ALT- Martin Hawksey is the tech wizard behind the scenes, that other Martin was present, and apparently is now part of the ALT furniture, Catherine Cronin is there, someone on my “to meet in person one day I hope”, who gave one of my favorite all time talks last year at ALT, Vivien Rolfe is there, David Kernohan is somewhere nearby… But really, the exciting thing is that Maha Bali was there in person, she for whom Virtually Connecting started, her first time being an onsite buddy instead of virtual, her first meeting with Rebecca Hogue and others. The time difference for me in Arizona to VConnecting sessions in GMT time were less than optimal. But how often are things promoted as open, world wide events, scheduled for 9AM Eastern Time (which sucks for me in Pacific Time), or even 11AM my time. People in Europe, India, Australia end up tuning in at their odd hours. It’s only fair to turn that around when one can. At least if you understand that the world operates in a time zone other than your own. So I signed up to be a Virtual Buddy for the first VConnecting session with ALT-C keynoter Steve Wheeler, it launched at 5:30AM my time. No big deal to do, set the alarm for 5am, the coffee machine for 4:55am, and go. I won’t do a stellar summary job, and Simon Ensor has already penned one of his typical poetic posts on it. But points of connection. You of course cannot be an ed tech in twitter/blog land without coming across Steve Wheeler. We’ve met before, once at a meeting in Barcelona, and earlier, I think in Brisbane when we were both in the same city for different meetings. Steve is good at taking my playful twitter jabs and bouncing back. The best part was that he brought his two students who co-presented with him (eek, I am forgetting their names - Kate and Becca!), but they talked the most from the Manchester side of the hangout.

1) I have many real friends who I have never met offline. These friendships are not virtual. 2) I am not sure that I would have been able to have so many useful conversations with these people had I been in Manchester for the conference. 3) I am sure that the effort invested in Virtually Connecting and the engagement made both deepened my ties with the people present (in the hangouts) and with the conference proceedings. 4) I developed immediately transferrable skills in the setting up of hangouts on air, the animation of discussions, and in dealing with distant time-zones. 5) I gained enormously from working in a team. You learn much about people when you do more than discuss or exchange tweets or comment on blog posts. You learn about their professional qualities, you learn from them and expand your own knowledge. 6) None of this would have happened, perhaps, if I had not been able to engage with a ‘gang’ in #rhizo14.Plus…
I came back to the edge of chaos in my daughter’s bedroom, with its pink curtains, with its curiously arranged toys, I sat down with a tame tiger and I knew that I had found it.I’ll come back to the “it” that is the “it” for me. That same day went on with my usual stuff of life, and tweeting, working on web sites, going out in the yard with the camera, dinner etc. I was lined up to run the VConnecting session with Jonathan Worth that was scheduled for 2:45AM my time. Why would I sign up for that? If you ask, then you do not know much of Jonathan’s work. I’ll leave that as a research exercise, but he is one of the most honest, insightful voices into education and technology (not mashed together), he’s a friend in all of the ways. I’ve dined at his table and spent a night sleeping in his studio. I will be honest, I did not stay up all night, I took a two hour power nap at 11:00pm. Got up at 1am, new pot of coffee. I wanted to watch his keynote (archived, thanks for the live stream, Martin!) so I’d be ready for the session. Jonathan asks some hard questions about the intersections of online and our lives. When done, there was a bit of a pause when it was opened up for questions. Thus it was no surprise that the first was from an Egyptian educator sitting in the front row:


And of course, we had a crowded group at Manchester with Sarah, Maha, and Rebecca all together: I was rather wired, so I stayed up doing another VConnecting hangout til maybe 4. I might have to look that one up to mention it. This post as already too long and fat.Theme of @Jonathan_Worth keynote #altc pic.twitter.com/wFSydeoNFp
— Amy Burvall (@amyburvall) September 9, 2015
About that Connecting Trick

Maybe I just dreamt of you, kind of trying to be in your shoes. But hey, technically speaking, I do not know you. I first met you in 2007. We’re strangers. And yet, my dreams hyperlink to your news and I hear a strong wake up call, just as when a close friend of your f2f life loses a loved one. Such is the mysterious story of the social web, I guess. A Spanish poet, explaining what dreams were to him, said: “I only know I know a lot of people I have never met”. The Internet is like a dream. A real one.I was so touched by this. It was one of the most real expressions I have ever heard. It dawned on me that all of my communications with Claudio have been asynchronous. I forgot who suggested but we Skyped for the first time when I was in Baltimore for Mom’s funeral. Talking with Claudia once stands out as one of my most personal and re-assuring that the world might be okay experiences. Our paths mingle, I see her favoriting some tweets or photos, and I see in twitter what she is up to. We may likely never meet. I cannot call this relationship virtual. It is more real than real. And that is the “it”, Simon. There is no virtual. There is connecting, starting with one connection at a time, and geometrically growing from there.
Top / Featured Image Credits: a scan of pages 38-39 from Zero To Zillions. I have no permission to do so. It’s probably copyrighted. But sometime in the 1970s my parents bought a copy, and I bought a second copy a few years ago. Scholastic got two purchases out of my family. I shall not monetarily gain from this image. Isn’t all this dance stepping of digital ownership silly?
Leave a Reply