Little moments = Big life

I and others in the tech community shared a small smile as we marked 1234567890 Day this Valentines day. For the non-geek 1234567890 was a Unix timestamp. Simply put the number of seconds elapsed since midnight Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) of January 1, 1970, not counting leap seconds, passed 1234567890 seconds last Saturday. To some this moment was a very good reason to hold a party, to others something unknown or not worth worrying about and to others still, myself included, just a reason to smile for a moment during the day. It was one of those milestones that are here for, in this case, literally a second and gone again. A point to mark time. It was a little moment. The thing we can get wrong is that even if something is a little moment, it doesn’t necessarily mean a non-significant moment. The big moments that we define our lives by are hard to miss. A graduation, a birth of a child, a wedding, the death of a loved one, a car accident or  the loss of a significant relationship are all great contenders for the title. They are moments that can significantly alter the course that we are running. The big moments are often associated with times of great emotion, good or bad, or stress and anxiety and we can call them to mind without hesitation.  Because they are so vivid and strong in our memories we attribute all sorts of decissions and actions to them. We forget about all the little steps that can bring us to that point. I’d say a better indicator of how we define ourselves is the sum the little moments you have. The moments of quiet reflection or the small times that are shared with others; The hug of a child that melts your heart; The shared commiseration at the loss of your home sporting team; Or the quiet satisfaction of a job well done when you complete a difficult task. We may have only a few watershed events in our lives, but the small course alterations happen all the time. And whilst the big stuff tends not to be forgotten and the keepsakes most times easy to find, the small stuff gets lost along the way. The question is: “How to we capture these little moments?” The answers of a generation ago was keep a diary, scrapbook, write a letter to a friend or keep a stack of a couple of thousand photos somewhere in a drawer. Some of the most usefull insights to a bygone era are from these simple tools, kept by normal everyday people. And yet in the rush of our lives, which seem to have become so full, we struggle to find the time and the discipline to maintain our own journals of this life. Diaries are lost or unused, and photos become lost on computer hard drives and CDs floating around home. Even an errant computer virus can destroy our keepsakes forever. The recent explosion of social networking phenomona has suddenly provided us with a whole new suite of ways to record the little moments. Arguably one of the reasons these sites are so popular is they enable us to share the little moments and thoughts of our lives with each other. Funny as it seems, I don’t mind knowing that a friend is “thinking it is too hot to sit in a classroom”, because I can identify moments I’ve thought the same. At the same time I can share photos of my children playing with a friend who I’ve not seen in person for years. My little moment is captured, shared and my world is enriched for the connection. Better still, my little moment awaits me every time I want to visit it again. The choices of how I capture these moments are seemingly endless. I can post updates of what’s happening to me right now in microblogs or tweets through FaceBook, MySpace or Twitter. I can diarise or blog my deeper thoughts through Blogger, BlogNow or iBlog. I can store and share my photos on Flickr or Picasa. I can host my videos on YouTube or Blip.tv. I can even aggregate them all and store copies of all my certificates and important documents through an ePortfolio solution like ShowMeNow.  I can make every bit of my life an event that is recorded and available to the world. Though that’s not to say I should. Ultimately, each of us needs to decide how we share, how much we share and what is appropriate. For instance I’d say recording a fight I had with my partner on an open forum or blog is not something I want the world to see. On an online diary that is mine and mine alone, I might. We need to be aware of what we are giving away and of the privacy settings available through the tools we use and how to use them.  Having said that, capturing my little moments and sharing them with others increases my world and enriches my journey through it. And whilst I’ve looked at the bigger picture, I can’t but help be aware that my lifelong learning journey is also made up of the smaller moments. The things I learn, can revolutionise my worldview or enhance my skills and thoughts just a little bit. Capturing the little things, can be so important when I’m trying to demonstrate my ability to preform a certain task or do a particular job. The things I capture along the way can becomes my peronal learning journey and how I capture them my personal learning environment.  It is unique to me. It will grow with me and change and develop as I do.  The tools I use, will be the ones that work for me. Likewise, your learning journey and how you capture it is for you to decide. What tools will you use to comprise your own personal learning environment? What will you record along the way? What should you record on the way through? How do you intend to grab it? Let us know what your learning world looks like.