Slackers

It's #WriterWednesday so I am challenging a #SquadGoalsNetwork
member at random with a #WritingPrompt.
The randomizer has chosen @greeneterry to write a short piece to introduce the network to three people you admire.

— Squad Goals Network (@SqdGlsNtwrk) November 7, 2018

What a crazy coincidence ! The weird fellow who is currently running the Squad Goals Network‘s social media game has some randomizer that chose me to write a short piece about three people I admire. Thanks weirdo!

The prompt prompted me, as prompts are wont to do, to think about a bittersweet situation that is currently forming. The PMers are starting to break up. PMer is the nickname for the ragtag group of eCampusOntario Program Managers. We do all kinds of things to further various initiatives for eCampus. There are four of us which means there are three of them who I admire very much. I think the Squad Goals Network would love to meet them!

This post is called Slackers because that is where we connect. We use Slack as a digital hallway to stay in touch and draw ideas and inspiration from each other, to get quick feedback, to ask for a boost, sometimes to vent. We are decidedly not slacking in the slacker sense of the word. The featured image for this post is piles and piles of rope and cord. That represents how much slack I believe we will have for each other going forward through our careers wherever we all end up after our eCampus opportunities come to an end. Which is the bittersweet bit: Joanne is heading back to her home institution soon.

So who are these amazing peers? I’ll tells ya with a series of bullet pointed facts about them.

Amazing peer #1: Peg French

• Crafty in every sense of the word
• Probably would be the greatest neighbour of all time
• Knows how things should actually work
• Oh the treats she makes/knows where to get!
• She sends you books that you need to read
• Blogs here
• Tweets here
• The best.

Amazing Peer #2: Jenni Hayman

• Has been Dr. Hayman for just under a fortnight (congrats again!)
• Will stay up facilitating and leading open initiatives for 24 hrs straight
• Makes it seem like she can whip entire communities of learning up with the greatest of ease even though it takes a lot of hard work
• Probably created a MOOC while I was writing this post
• Blogs here
• Tweets here
• The best.

Amazing Peer #3: Joanne Kehoe

• Designs instruction in the way that I wish I could
• Should run webinars on how to run webinars
• Her ed-tech tool box probably glows when you open it like the briefcase in Pulp Fiction
• Hopefully realizes that the PMer Slack space has a Hotel California-esque checkout policy
• Blogs here
• Also runs the IDIG blog
• Tweets here
• The best.

Having these three as your closest colleagues all together at the same time has been a  jackpot level of a gift. Follow them and help me draw them in to the Squad Goals Network, too!

Photo by Emma Louise Comerford on Unsplash