Virtual Support

Jane Nicholls created a Troubled post today that had me thinking. She is feeling troubled about the balance between spending too much time with virtual friends as opposed the face to face variety.

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I have spent the last twelve weeks in self imposed exile from many of my face to face friends as they follow their careers and family commitments. This self imposed exile from paid employment was brought about for the need to care for myself and my mother as we came to terms with her diagnosis of Parkinson’s Disease and the failure of my knee joints to osteo-arthritis and cartilage depletion meaning I had to spend quite some time on crutches.

During this time I had more time than usual to explore things on-line and less time with face to face friends as I dealt with doctor and hospital visits.

My virtual friends were not there to help mow the lawns or do the household chores but then my face to face friends weren’t there either as they worked full time or pursued their own family commitments. Some face to face friends stayed in contact via Web2.0 tools- email and Skype.

Some of my global, virtual friends though offered me moral support as well. Although I have never met some they are as real as people that live more locally. They helped me feel connected and still part of things even when I was forced to stay at home. Paul (Wales) offered moral support and conversation, Sheryl (Virginia) invited me to join her in Shanghai, Chris and I worked together in Sydney, Miguel (Texas) lent me a hand with my tech problem, Ewan (Scotland) included us in the birth of his baby girl and I communicated with others via Twitter, email and commenting. Some of these people I will probably never meet face-to-face but I still call them friends. These people are all part of my real life.

4 thoughts on “Virtual Support

  1. Elvis Presley once recorded a beautiful song called “You’ll Never Walk Alone” and I found myself humming it whilst reading your post. It never ceases to amaze me how often my “virtual” friends are there – whether it be to offer help, support, try out something new or to have a bit of a laugh. We all probably don’t need to meet f2f – if we don’t, it doesn’t make the friendship any less powerful or important. You and I met once f2f for about 5 minutes and I will never forget that day and I’m certainly pleased to be part of virtualsphere that helps keep you feeling connected.

  2. Nicely worded Allanah. My struggle I think is that I am too consumed by my virtual life which is leaving my ‘real’ life is disarray :-). Balance is important. I have met people through the online environment who I would never have been able to meet and maintain a friendship with in real life. And for those of us who are lucky enough to be able to meet up f2f occasionally it is like meeting with old friends, it is always a treat to meet up with you at conferences. I enjoy reading about the experiences of my online network but I have come to the conclusion I need to make more time to listen to the experiences of my f2f network. It is too easy to stay inside.

  3. I am finding now the need to cut back a little on my blog reading- being a little more choosy on those I want to follow. I ‘get it’- the need for schools to change, 21st century learning styles, the American frustration with school boards blocking Web2.0 sites. So I don’t want to spend time revisiting those issues.

    Yes it is balance- also the balance when school returns of spending enough in-class time on classroom dynamics and basics- making sure that children have quality instruction in being able to read, compute, socialise and move.

    A few more hours in the day might help- daylight saving starts this weekend- that might be an answer.

  4. Allanah – I firmly believe that these virtual links that we have made have given us a new form of friendship and professional support. These links are as important in many ways as our face to face friends and colleagues, especially as we often feel isolated in our own schools ( there are firm walls between classrooms), whereas with our global friends we have truly begun to break down walls. I feel truly privileged to count you and the other web 2.0 gang as friends 🙂 Keep on blogging.

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