Online

This topic is certainly dear to me. Just making a retrospective of my own blogging, I can see how many times the words connections, interconnected, relationship, connectivity appear in my writing, not to mention my talk. I can see how connectivity is part of my life in every sense of the word. In the past, I used to be connected face-to-face with people and that already fascinated me. Nowadays, besides the daily encounters with family, friends, co-workers, students, I´ve added my online connections as part of my routine and just as essential to it. There´s not a single day that I don´t turn on the computer, talk to people, learn from others, interact, join different tribes, smile and get excited with the tremendous possibilities I get from these digital encounters. They are no less important and real than every person I talk to, hug, laugh and interact.

The way I´ve linked and hyperlinked in cyberspace has changed how I view my profession and my sustained development as an educator and human being. I wouldn´t be here if it weren´t for a tweet from Dave Cormier.



I could be writing about any ed tech happening, but wouldn´t know about Darcy Norman´s project. Through my online circles serendipity is learning, a tweet surprises us, blogging adds to our voices and comments become the heart of these humanly ties that we start to cherish and long for. Through Slideshare, I pass on what I´ve been up to, even Facebook has its own connective role.

However, in an interconnected digital space, I´d say that my darling is Flickr! Not that the others aren´t essential hook ups. They are, and all the apps make a difference in the way we relate to others. But Flickr has just such a powerful appeal, and that´s exactly why tomorrow I´ll be sharing some of my ideas about it to a group of educators, and I think it has a lot to do what I think about humanware and connections. Flickr is visual and vibrant. Its dashboard shows who I am, whom I connect to, what makes me tick. Flickr reminds us of the power of an image. It empowers me to communicate, share and learn from my network. Flickr is part of my interconnected learning cycles about life, people and my profession.

Flickr - Design that Connects

View more presentations from Carla Arena.

I connect online through my learning communities, I thrive because of them. Technology is just the invisible hands that make all this possible and desirable.

Still on Simplicity

I spent the weekend checking things at home, deciding what I should take back to Brazil, throwing things away, selecting stuff for donation, uncluttering. I also had good laughs with my sons checking their crazy school stories that I keep and cherish as precious moments of their growth.



All this kept me thinking about my digital forward motion. Simplicity, right? So, how about if you and I take this moment of the year when we're wrapping things up to unclutter. How about

• unsubscribing to e-lists we're part, clutter our mail boxes and we waste precious time everyday to delete the messages without even opening them?
• making some participation priorities? What is feasible right now for us in terms of connections, active participation, conversations? Which lists, blogs, communities should we contribute to? Which nodes of our network really add value to us, personally and professionally?
• deciding for online spaces that help us be more productive and efficient? Which spaces are only time consumers and don't really add any value to us?
• dumping old concepts and embracing the new? How about making a detachment exercise?
  

I'll start by unsubscribing to some e-lists and changing notification preferences to some groups. I'll keep tweeting. This is where I feel truly connected, I share and receive so much from the network. The Webheads, this fantastic group of educators keep me going. Always looking forward to stronger bonds with them.

It's also time to rethink my google reader architecture. How can I make the most out of my reader?

As for my detachment exercise, I started a big one. My husband is ripping all our CDs and we'll have a Media Center at home. This means we're giving all the CDs away. It's a big step for me, but time to move forward. It's my biggest challenge now, to overcome this feeling of attachment mainly in a period of moving, in which we need to decide what stays and what we let it got. I guess it's a perfect moment to just let certain things go.

How about you? How could you make your digital life more pleasant, productive and efficient?
Let us remember. Simplicity is key. It lightens our souls, let us connect even more tightly, and make us laugh more often. Which digital practices will you box and let it go? How can you make even wider, open online spaces without sacrificing what matters to you?

It would be great to hear your tricks and ideas.