Friday, March 28, 2008
My IMing
I am not particularly fond of IMing as a pastime. I sometimes use Skype's chat capability to message friends in far flung places. Once discussion becomes more involved, we switch to voice/phone mode. For this program, I signed up with AIM and, invariably. don't sign in... It's almost as if I can't be bothered. For me IMing is really a quick way to get a hold of someone for an answer to a question. Judi and I have exchanged a couple for assignments, and I have been in contact with several other students in the group but really to exchange info. I only sign in when I have to... although I have been trying to be more open about it and try to sign in more. While reading the article, I recalle my own high school days, and the occasional long hour(s) on the phone to friends, invariably talking about boys or parties. I would have loved IMing if it had existed back then, and would have been damned good at it. It might have helped with my general shyness for I was always more of a writer than a talker. At this stage in the game, I prefer email, as I have not yet (this article clued me in) incorporated the partial sentence rule for when you have something long to say. This article was indeed an eye-opener on many levels.
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1 comment:
Bene
I know what you mean. I was almost the opposite. I struggled with creating coherent email messages.
We often have so much to say in emails. I am beginning to learn the importance of short messages. I have started to use bullets.
I had stopped using IM from college until about a year ago. I used to help my 6th graders. I was in the office when grading or writing lesson plans (always worked better at home and using preps for breathers).
I had just added IM for work (at the New Lit Laab) and after reading these articles I used it to post my homework in my available/away message. I didn't mind if kids asked a quick question about work, but hung up if they asked anything more personal than how were the cowboys doing.
I had my admin. permission and saved all the chatlogs as a CYA manuever. It ended up working great.
Now that I have a 10 tasks a day to get done and time for only eight of them I find IM to indispensable.
That said I would sometimes worry that my IM use favored those in the class who were comfortable using IM. Then I would think back to my 6th graders who found it helped for quick info.
I guess there is no stopping communication tools that increase efficiency. Coming from the business world you must know better than most efficiency equals increased profits.
I am not sure I would conclude that it also equates increased learning.
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