I’m not particularly organised in my online life. I often look for ‘a great video I saw once’ or ‘that excellent blog by someone’ or ‘the fabulous post about x’. I often wish I was better at bookmarking and curating and, well, just keeping stuff.
Over time, I have dallied with Delicious, dabbled in Diigo and signed up to Scoopit, among others. I liked all of them and I have a collection of sites bookmarked all over the place… yet I rarely refer back to them. I’m tempted by Pinterest now, but realise it will end the same way as the rest. An initial burst of interest and organisation, usually over school holidays when I have time, and then I get lazy and it peters out to nothing…
Looking for the video ‘Move‘ which I remembered seeing in the past, I asked on Twitter if anyone could share a link to the ‘video of the guy walking in different countries’. What came my way was, not just that one, but ‘Where the hell is Matt?‘, which suited my needs even better. While exploring Vimeo for ‘Move’, I discovered ‘Learn‘, which is a perfect provocation to get teachers thinking about the attitudes and qualities of real learners. (I must remember that it’s there…)
Contemplating my apparent lack of organisation , I realise why I am this way. It’s because I am an inquirer. I like the thrill of the chase. I prefer to search and discover something new… or tweet and see what my PLN comes up with. I’d rather explore, wonder and ask, than refer back to previously saved links. I love experimenting, gathering, seeking, connecting, discovering and uncovering. I like the way one thing leads to another and the learning is inevitably richer for the experience.
I once asked an internet junkie friend what bookmarking tool he uses to save and organise his favourite links. ‘Nothing’ he replied, ‘There will always be something new to discover’…
aarondavis1
alavina
andyv10
Bart Miller
brianneises
cdw11238
cpaterso
CristinaM.
darrylanderson
Dave Truss
Dave Secomb
derekpinchbeck
Craig
educatoral
faige
filearning
Gallit Zvi
graingered
hjoubert
Holly Reardon and Katie Knight
Jason Graham
Jina Belnick
johnbarell
kathmurdoch
kdceci
lanafleiszig
lindybuckley1
Maggie Hos-McGrane
@malynmawby
Marina Gijzen
maryacbyu
marycollins21
Michael Kaechele
mirandarose14
Gareth Jacobson
sherrattsam
nainisingh
Tanya de Hoog
Peter Skillen
J Rafael Angel
Inquiry Partners
shelleywright
Sonya terBorg
Tania Ash
tasha cowdy
tbondclegg
Louise Robitaille
tgaletti
Tyler
whatedsaid
wholeboxndice
Inquire Within 
Thanks for the links to these joyful videos, and for the explanation of why I’m so disorganized about my links and other resources.
LikeLike
Glad I made you feel better!
LikeLike
That’s a great post. Very sensible explanation of why one is disorganised…I don’t feel half so stressed about being disorganised myself now! Super videos. I added them to my class Symbaloo.
LikeLike
Ah, you have Symbaloo 😉
LikeLike
This is a great post and on reading the words I was surprised to find others feeling the same way as me. To date, I’d not articulated what was happening but I just had this unsettling feeling that something was happening to the old ways of learning, deep within me. Your post has prompted me to try and unpack what I have been feeling. So, in the past being a good learner meant being able to find, and save things individually… hence I too have set up accounts and started with diigo, delicious, and heaps more networking tools.
Each time I was resolutely determined to keep ‘on top of it’. I’ve spent hours searching for that exclusive resource I just knew would be wonderful too. It had taken me 30 odd years to master these learning strategies and I was not letting go fast! The old adage, if I worked at it harder I’d do better kept ringing in my ears….
Fast forward to yesterday ..I’d set up a Scoop It for Inquiry learning… and voila found this great blog. A nice piece of serendipitous learning which resonated so strongly with me that it triggered a real ‘ ah ha’ moment. Your idea that it was the thrill of the chase, the search for the new and the wonderful sense of insatiable curiosity that was driving your learning…. is also so true for me.
We need to truly recognise that we don’t need to constantly running to keep up with new social networking tools, always thinking that a better one is around the corner. As you so rightly noted develop and use that PLN…. ask people for help. I’ve found that in our society one of the most difficult things can be to ask for help, yet people are so willing to share, support and provide assistance. Yet, when you do ask ……….. the answer is just right there…
So as a direct outcome of this great post, I’ve taken time to reflect and to work a bit harder at letting of those old notions about needing to store knowledge so I can find it later, when later never comes. Yes, there is always something new to discover and if we check with our PLNs someone will know someone who knows something……. this is the nature of the web.
Shelly Nussbaum -Beach often says’ none of us is as smart as all of us’ I think this really sums it up – by working together we can meet any challenge but working on your own just means that you’ll keep getting frustrated at not being able to find that great post you once read……. Which feeling would you prefer?
LikeLike
Thanks Liz. Your comment is so superior to the actual post! Your thoughts have helped me develop my thinking further… Will you collaborate with me on a post for my own blog, pulling together my thoughts and yours?
LikeLike
I’d be absolutely delighted. It seems that your ‘frivolous’ post has really hit a nerve and that many people are experiencing the same sense of dissonance as we are …… Far from being frivolous, I think your post was just the tip of the iceberg ……… and that the submerged bit is now what we are surfacing up….
By the way I’m in Australia too, Blue Mountains NSW …..
Do you have some ideas about how we could go about a collaborative post…?
LikeLike
I do! Will email you at the address you posted with, hope that’s ok.
LikeLike
Ah-ha, I am not alone. You captured the essence of why I find collecting links so difficult to do – I hadn’t thought about it before, but I too like the thrill of the chase, the new discovery and the opportunity to explore ways I could use those discoveries.
LikeLike
Thanks Margot. There I was, thinking I had written this frivolous little admission and instead I find people identifying with me…. and provoking me to think further about new ways of learning!
LikeLike
I am the same… I always start these online bookmarking things only to find that they fade away. I like to find new things, and the looking is better than the actual finding. When I look, I find things I wasn’t looking for and expand my ideas, but when I just retrieve, well, I just retrieve what I was looking for.
LikeLike
So true! Your post brings me comfort- as I fail and fail again at “curating” online content…
I wonder what this means for our teaching…How we store, access and share information is so different today than it used to be. Perhaps students today don’t feel the tension that we do for being “disorganized” as they are organized in a different way… What are we doing to understand this and support them?
You have again made me think in another direction! Thanks!
LikeLike