Tuesday, October 20, 2009

Wired Wednesdays

When I was in first grade I loved marbles. All the kids in my class loved marbles. We traded them, played games and even knew all the names. Aggies, cat's eyes, spirals, and more were compared, counted and coveted at recess and afterschool. Marbles were a currency, a connection and quite honestly just plain fun. Then (without even consulting me) our family moved.

I arrived at my new school in September ready to make friends and get back to my marble playing and trading ways but alas this new town was virtually marbleless. As I rattled off the names of my precious marbles I was met by blank stares. Not only did they not know the names of these little beauties, they didn't have a clue how to play with them. I suppose I could have taught them, but it would have taken a significant investment in infrastructure (ie marbles), before we could even get started! Suffice it to say that my marbles just got put away. It's not much fun to play unless you have friends to play with.

Well I'm way past those marble playing days but I've found myself in that situation once again. I have this great bag of Web 2.0 toys tools that I'd love to play work with, but I've been met with those same blank stares. However this time it's going to be different. This time I've decided not to put my marbles away. Instead I'm investing some time into sharing my obsession knowledge with my friends and fellow parents.

Every Wednesday morning for the past 6 weeks or so a brave group of women have been joining me at our local library for Wired Wednesdays. I entered into this endeavour with three goals in mind. First to get them set up with a bag of marbles great group of tools and second to explore how we can use those tools to connect, organize, create, and communicate. What's the third goal? To have friends to play with of course -- c'mon you didn't think my motives were completely altruistic did you?

Over the next few posts I'll share what marbles we've been busy putting in our bags. Which ones are being coveted, which are super shiny and which turned out to be duller than I would have thought. Who knows.. maybe we'll even invite you to come and play!

Photo Credits
Bag o Marbles by Nancy in AZ via flickr
Marble by Hidden Side via Flickr