Estimated reading time: 4 minutes, 21 seconds
Earlier this evening I participated in an AWESOME hangout for #dmlcommons as part of the blog talk garage, with the awesome Alan Levine, Howard Rheingold, Jim Groom (each of these guys has a special place in my heart for different reasons) and my other blog ‘sisters’ Lee Skallerup Bessette (we’re working on some stuff together these days which has been really inspiring me) and Laura Hilliger (whom I follow but do not know well).
Here is the hangout recording, where we tackled some really interesting issues about blogging for newbies, with reference to Jeffrey’s earlier convo on Twitter re importance (or lack thereof) of comments on blogs, and questions of when, what, why we blog, how it fits in a formal classroom setting, or prof dev setting, and also what it means to have your own space, to use blogs for connecting by interweaving other blogs (i call it cross-blogging, but…) and other cool stuff… Enjoy
Now…. The back story. 7pm is my girl’s bed time. I have been really lucky in the past in getting her down by 6.55 and showing up at 7pm 🙂 not so today. She was sick so didn’t go to daycare so wasn’t tired by 6:30. I tried to put her to bed, no luck.
Then i had tech issues with getting into the hangout. I tried my iPad mini, my android phone on wifi, then thought maybe my prob was w the wifi so tried my older iPad on 3G. The end result was i was logged on from two devices, one where i could hear folks, the other where they could hear my daughter playing around even tho i thought i was muted. Shut down all my devices but one and solved that issue. (Long story why laptop was never an option here… But no laptop was why i had no name under my video while i talked).
Thankfully I finally managed to get on. I got kicked out a couple times. My daughter learned the expression “dammit” (in English; i almost never swear in Arabic, it seems ruder for some reason, and I don’t know enough Arabic swear words anyway).
Buuuut in the end, I got on, could hear the convo and contribute and it was aaaaawwwwesooooome. I had gotten some bad news earlier that day, and the night before had been awful in a weird way, so this hangout was a high point for me.
some adventurous things that occurred during the hangout relate to managing to contribute with a 3 year old right beside me. First, she jumped onto my lap a couple times. Then, she asked to go potty a couple times (yes, the camera was off for a REASON). Next, she stopped playing w toys and turned on some music on the other iPad… Which meant if i wanted to talk i needed to get out of the room – one time she followed me out so i could not talk. In between, i occasionally fed her bites of toast and sips of milk (she is perfectly capable of feeding herself, but she knows i was not focused on her, so…. Earlier that day i was talking to Lee in a google doc and my daughter was jumping around my shoulders. Can’t blame her; she’s not that sick, not like earlier this month, thank God).
Now… I was wondering before today’s hangout if having us blog sisters on would make a difference to how the convo went. I actually never watched one of those blog talk garages even tho i started to several times (i have a v short video attention span mainly coz my kid won’t let me watch til the end)… I think they usually bring up blogs and give them “makeover” suggestions? While today it seemed more of a convo about the ideas of connecting thru blogging? I am not sure. I love that Alan nicknamed me “connect” 🙂 i wouldn’t have chosen a better one 🙂 and i also love how Alan talked about my blog, and said like I had 10 years of experience in my 1 year of blogging. I loved how Lee brought up the issue of audience, and how we discussed a diverse set of issues related to blogging, including the kind of trolling or abuse women sometimes faced online.
Enjoyed this so much – thanks again for inviting me, even though I sort of imposed myself by piggybacking on Lee’s tweet on “all males” with one of my own of “all white Western males” even tho i love them all 🙂 then noticed that everywhere and blogged about it.
Oh btw – i have no idea how u guys were organizing who spoke when. I could only chat w Jim and Alan earlier then not any more… What,s up with that!
And seriously, what’s up with hangouts that ppl who use them regularly (and i don’t just mean me) sometimes get issues? I think it must be google tinkering behind our backs or something. In those ways, apps on mobile are usually more stable than on PC… So today was weird coz the device with the LEAST up to date version of hangouts app is the one that worked! Go figure…