Do you know where you’re going to? Do you like the things that life is showing you?

  by  grodt1987 

If my first paragraph frightens you, please persevere. Balance of mind returns in the second paragraph.

I took a moment to edit my twitter profile and “exposed myself”! to a different community. With the inclusion of “nursing educator”, within hours I had a request to be followed by the competition.  (social media espionage???)  Now I’m wondering why do they care about me and what I’m saying or reading?  This is not a person but a marketing machine that wants to follow me.  They have a vested business interest in knowing me?  How many follow me= Judy KJ’s social capital?!  How does the sum of one nursing program’s faculty’s followers compare to the others?  I sound like a conspiracy theorist, I’m sure, but I’m a little freaked out after George Siemans‘ presentation.  Just when I think I’m regaining some equilibrium in EC&I831, some other novel and/or challenging idea knocks me off balance again.  If we’re delivered information and product advertising and follower requests based on how we’ve been profiled in our cyberspace travel, how else is this information being used?  If I have the feeling I’m being watched, is this illusion or paranoia?  Am I being me-watched as I SWIM -(sense-make and way-find ) and recreate on the beach???  Is anyone else feeling vulnerable and exposed?  Suspicious of motives?

  by  TheeErin

I was feeling pretty pleased with myself for making collaboration with workplace  colleagues possible by building a meeting agenda in a googledoc and creating a dropbox folder for clinical course resources this week, only to be received with thinly veiled hostility because, “in the past, we’ve always used the groups folder on the course page and I don’t have time to learn how to do this.”  The collaborative feature was completely overlooked or downplayed, I’m not sure which.   Now, I have empathy for this position, as this was me a year ago, so I graciously offered to, for now, place the resources into the folder on the course page.  Diffusion of innovation theory, help me out here.  My colleague is now in the knowledge or awareness stage.  By virtue of being on a planning committee with me, an early or late adopter, I’m not sure which, she’s in my peer network, exposed to this innovation in collaborative writing.  RE: complexity, compatibility and trial-ability: however simple or user-friendly this particular innovation is, it was not seen to be consistent with socio-cultural values, and in spite of being immediately trial-able for one meeting, this individual was a non-adopter, for now.  As other peers uptake use and extol associated virtues, this peer may be swept up in a critical mass of useage.  Until then, she will assess me with suspicion…?  Is anyone else getting strange looks and reactions as you integrate new ways of doing into your way of being?

Speaking of way finding, and on a much less paranoid note, I found my way to paper.li and I love it.  I LOVE how it organizes just like the newspapers I’ve loved to read.  The esthetic is different but as pleasing to me as the tactile experience of paging through a paper version.  And what I REALLY LOVE is how unlike the version you purchase on the newstand, my twitter version contains not only bad, but good and great news more global than local in scope; inspirational stories of countries making steady progress toward MDGs, of philanthro-capitalists awarding grants for innovators in vaccine development (our own VIDO here are U of S has been a recipient of funding from the Gates Foundation), of educational innovators, medical breakthroughs and  leadership feats.  I sometimes want to be called up to a higher place when I read news.  Is this wrong?  Is this adopting rose-colored glasses?  Would my supervising faculty criticize what they perceive as loss of my critical lense?  OR is this what George would call “weaving my own tapestry”, “creating (my own) coherence?  Please comment… I’d love to hear what you think.  I can handle criticism.  Whereas in my undergraduate degree, and even half of my graduate studies, established curricula and required readings have influenced which ideas received exposure, learning in an open course with the web as my library means the sky is the limit, and I exercise some free will in what to lay my eyes on and apply my mind to.   I, like George, think I can handle the ambiguity.

<div><a href=’http://www.flickr.com/photos/drp/1136216/&#8217; target=’_blank’><img src=’http://farm1.static.flickr.com/1/1136216_9a193d0dd2.jpg&#8217; alt=’Lights Out Please by drp, on Flickr’ title=’Lights Out Please by drp, on Flickr’ border=’0’/></a><br/><a href=’http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.0/&#8217; target=’_blank’><img src=’http://i.creativecommons.org/l/by-nc-nd/2.0/80×15.png&#8217; alt=’Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.0 Generic License’ title=’Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.0 Generic License’ border=’0′ align=’left’></a>&nbsp;&nbsp;by&nbsp;<a href=’http://www.flickr.com/people/drp/&#8217; target=’_blank’>&nbsp;drp</a><a href=’http://www.imagecodr.org/&#8217; target=’_blank’>&nbsp;</a></div>

<a href=’http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.0/&#8217;

I have to say, WOW, I’m so impressed with how everyone is learning and growing and writing with more flare and posting more riveting images.  I really loved  Sarah‘s
post this week – her huge heart for teaching young teens and boys comes through in spades and I feel like I really got to know her.   I would have loved to have her as a teacher for my 14 year old who is now 21 and according to my neighbors, will receive his brain back from aliens sometime in the next 4 years.

Until later, blog on!

PS has anyone had the attribution not show up, as with my first image in the post?  I tried twice to follow the instructions exactly as provided for using imagecodr and still, no credit beneath the great visual.

Mental health promotion aided by social media?

The  profession of nursing, by definition, brings nurses into contact with human suffering and loss.  The loss may be as monumental as death of a family member or friend, or it may be less obvious, such as a new diagnosis of schizophrenia or heart disease or muscular schlerosis; or the birth of a child with a physical or cognitive challenge.   Counselling and teaching are nursing roles in supporting those coping with loss .

Shauna, in her #eci831 blog last week, presented some ideas and posed some great questions around using social media to educate and support those dealing with various medical conditions.

Related to this application of social media is health promotion for grieving individuals, whether grieving for loss of health or function or grieving the death of a loved one.  What we know about healthy grieving or griefwork is that acknowledging and facing one’s feelings and expressing them in a tangible or creative way is therapeutic and healing.   I came upon this blog quite by accident, or… maybe serendipitously while stalking on facebook.  AmongFriends was set up specifically for bereaved persons to share their  grief journeys and support one another. 

Blog-grieving allows people facing loss to tell their stories , but in a more public way than what is traditional.  Being connected with others facing similar crises may allow for mutual member support, validation or “normalizing” of experiences from someone who’s been there, or is there right now.  With a larger network of commiserants than would be in a geographical community, chances that someone will understand and respond in a meaningful way.  There may be a sense of safety and security in  anonmymity, if one chooses, if a person isn’t sure if their reactions to their loss are “normal”.  I could have used this outlet when my son was diagnosed with insulin-dependent diabetes at 5 years back in 1995, when I felt too weak and crazy to tell friends and family what was going on, and consequently experienced depression for several years as a result of  lack of internal management strategies for chronic sorrow. 

I now appreciate an application for social media which I’d never considered before and which intrigues me for its potential as a mental health promotion tool.  

Counselling and nursing types out there, have you ever explored blogging as therapy for a grieving client?  If so, did you follow up?  Was the experience therapeutic?  Would you consider recommending blogging or joining an online social networking group as a means of processing feelings associated with loss?

life-saving tweets and twitter in nursing and medical education

Warning:  this video contains close-ups of internal organs and body fluids.

I’ll apologize upfront for the length of this video.  Thankfully, there’s some good entertainment value for you time.  (Feel free to disagree after viewing.)  After seeing this episode of Grey’s Anatomy last year,  the light dawned for me about the potential for social media and education and indeed, life-saving problem solving.  Incidentally, this was the same night Sheldon’s (Big Bang Theory) audience members were tweeting “KMN” while he lectured.  That’s a topic to unpack another day!