“How do you have time to all of this?” This is the first question most people ask me after I give a talk or present a workshop on networked learning and the use of technology. By “all of this” they most likely mean: blogging, checking RSS feeds, Tweeting, or any other of the million things I most likely prattled on and on about during the previous hour. To them my life must look something like this:

cc licensed ( BY ) flickr photo shared by porschelinn

Or maybe this:

There is probably some truth to both images, but the reality is quite different. I have written before about what ubiquitous daily technology use looks like for me…

…She said, “Yeah Jabiz but you seem to spend a lot of time on the computer. I want to have a life.” I am paraphrasing what she said. I know this teacher fairly well, so I didn’t take offense to her comment. I am quite certain that she wasn’t implying that I don’t have a life, and this post is not a defense of my behaviors, but it really got me thinking, do people really think that using technology is a choice to be made that opposes having a life? Do people think that tech-geeks choose the vacant lifeless draw of their screens over “real” life?

You can read the post in its entirety here. Scary to think that it is over three years old, but still somehow relevant. In this post, however, the one you are reading now, I have tried to do things a bit differently. Sure you can repeatedly read about the many ways that people use technology as a tool to enhance their daily lives, but sometimes it helps to actually get a play-by-play visual.

That is what I tried to do. I have created a fifteen minute film about my daily workflow. Exercise in ego? Maybe. Come on Jabiz who the wants to watch fifteen minutes of your daily life. I know, I know, but making the clip has been a very eye-opening experience for me. Perhaps it is a bit much, but I hope that people find it useful when thinking about their own technology use. I hope you can use it, or parts of it, to help talk to your staff about different ways that people use technology. It is not the model, but a model to help you think about the ways you organize your day.

“We don’t have time, we make it.” Nothing can be more true in the digital age, when there is so much pressure to do so many different things. Kudos to anyone who actually watches the whole thing. I hope it gives a balanced and accurate view of a typical day in my life. I’ll meet you on the other side for some reflection and closing thoughts.

As I was watching myself go through the day, I couldn’t help but think of a passage I recently read in a post by Alan Levine:

I find even the terminology strange– to “go online” as if it were a place. Do we sit down on the couch, press the remote, and say we are “going TV”? Maybe that’s a poor analogy, but using the “go” makes it suggest we are having some sort of out of body experience.

Part of this seems historic, because in the previous decades of networked technology, we had to go to a place- first it was some special building with a mainframe computer, then maybe a computer lab, then as microcomputers hit the home front, we were picking ourselves up from the living room, and going to some other room to be connected.

But with tablets, ipads, internet connected phones, we can go online almost where-ever we are.  It’s my personal contention that a suggestion of ourselves moving from “offline” to “online” is a false binary construct. We are who we are, period. Read more

I have no idea how to answer when people ask me how much time I spend online. In a sense, I am never offline. Like Alan mentioned, the web is not a place I go; I don’t go online, I live online. We can discuss how this type of connection can be problematic and unhealthy in the comment section below, but I hope my video and previous post illustrate that I am not having a consistent Clockwork Orange experience.

I am a father, a teacher, an artist…blah, blah, blah, you have heard it all before. The point of this video and post, if there is one, is that how we incorporate technology into our lives is a very personal experience. Your school is most likely demanding that you use more technology in your classroom, but until you are using technology in a comfortable way for you, in your daily life, it will not make sense.  The comfortable way is crucial. No one is saying that you need to get up at 5:00am and check Twitter. You simply need to find how much time you can make to try new things and adjust your time appropriately. We all want balanced, rich, interesting lives, so we should try to find out how and when technology enables these ideal lifestyles, and when it inhibits us from experiencing reality. Finding this balance is an ongoing personal negotiation. It does, however, have large implications for how we view and interact with students, as they are in the process of their own negotiations. I recently wrote more on that here.

After making this video, I am finding places that technology is infringing on my life too much for my taste. I can see that some of my no screen times are becoming tainted with the occasional Tweet, or checking if I “missed anything” glances at my phone, but even your friendly neighborhood tech coach is still figuring it all out. Taking inventory of every minute of my day has been a great way to see where my negotiations are headed.

I would love to see more videos by people who read this blog. Would be cool if we could post them all somewhere for others to watch. After all, the lack of time is the number reason most people give for not being connected and part of a network, so let’s create a bank of models for people to look at for ideas.

Feel free to take this conversation anywhere you like, but I would love to hear what you have to say about how you balance your life. When and how does technology become intrusive? When does it enhance your reality?

Final note: You maybe asking why I am never marking or planning. The main reason is that I am currently in what I like to call the “meat” of my unit. The planning has been done and kids are working hard. I hover and poke and prod and get kids on task, but the planning and teaching are all but done, and the assessment has yet to begin. In a more stressful marking period, I would use my time at home to mark (sometimes till midnight) or some time during school. I also try not to assign too much work that is marking heavy. I balance out long essays with assessments that are easier to mark. I rarely give homework. (I find it useless, more on that topic in another post) I find if I give kids less busy work, I have less busy work to monitor and mark. I try to keep most of the work I expect from students to be mostly longer unit project based assessments.

All music from CCMixter:

Feeling Dark (Behind The Mask) by 7OOP3D
Goodbye War, Hello Peace by teru
Kids then Age by Fireproof_Babies
Myxtery by Pitx