I wanted to leave you with a summary blog highlighting my experience with the sharing, discussion and commenting elements of this course.
First of all, I wanted to formally acknowledge my admiration for those individuals who have managed to master Twitter, blogging, and our Google + Community. I raise my hat to you all, and I have appreciated your thoughts, feedback and knowledge. I must admit, however, to feeling a bit intimidated by the quality and frequency of your posts and comments. For a while, I beat myself up, worrying about not being able to keep pace, and then I remembered something.
I speak often about my boys, and here's another story to illustrate my point. My youngest son has a condition that causes physical limitations. He has always had trouble with activities that require large muscle strength and coordination. He still watches in awe as his friends seemingly effortlessly, maneuver through monkey bars, roller-blade, or climb trees. And yet, he's never really seemed to be bothered by the difficulty he had with keeping up. We have always told him that he was good at things that other people struggle with, and this conscious teaching and the inner confidence that he seems to have been born with, have enabled him to admire others without self-recrimination. I appreciate this quality and I have found myself trying to emulate him by allowing myself to admire the prolific and eloquent posters in our cohort group and, at the same time, accept that online discussion and conversation are not really my strengths. However, as Mother Teresa said, "We ourselves feel that what we are doing is just a drop in the ocean. But the ocean would be less because of that missing drop." I take comfort in that.
Therefore, all this being said, I also acknowledge that even though I did not have the most tweets, I can now say that I have used Twitter. I can utilize hash tags and I can appreciate how Twitter is a powerful tool to connect and share. I can also say that I have now blogged, and have experienced the thrill of having people respond personally to my thoughts and opinions. In turn, I have tried to Tweet relevant and useful information and links to others, and I have also commented on other people's blogs, in a way that hopefully was constructive and encouraging. In the end, I have identified that I find it easiest to share in our Google + community and I appreciate that our Google + community was the spot where I could most easily connect with others and was most able to add to the conversation. On the odd occasion, I even got to help someone out.
I wanted to end this entry with the chorus from one of my favourite songs, "Watershed", by the Indigo Girls. These lyrics go out to the members of my cohort group, who also struggle with second-guessing every online comment that they make, and who sit back for far too long, think far too much, and second-guess their opinions far too often.
Up on the watershed
Standing at the fork in the road
You can stand there and agonize
Till your agony's your heaviest load
You'll never fly as the crow flies
Get used to a country mile
When you're learning to face
The path at your pace
Every choice is worth your while
(I've attached a youtube video of the song too, if you aren't familiar with it, and care to listen.)