Chatdown

I'm all for the social construction of spaces, but in our Gmail Chat today, there was no pause, no place. The chaos frustrated me and cast me out, revealing (or suggesting) that my identity, as constructed for classrooms and face-t0-face social interactions is geeky and out of place. Is it age? Is it personality? What makes me supersensitive about being an outsider in this insider chat?

Okay, enough of the emotional reaction. Pedagogically, I would not want to initiate a synchronous chat in which my students could exclude me--they can do that on their own time. If I used it, I would set up small groups that met at different times and guide the conversation for instructional purposes.

You can see that my thinking right now is punctuated, its syntax slowed down by the staggering speed of the chatter(s).

And for the record, I love y'all! I'm just exhausted by the experience.