It just so happens that my travelling European vacation started at the same time as the Digital Communication course! This meant I needed to juggle and balance reading course material, making notes, working on assignments and getting access to the Internet in Europe while being on vacation with my family and friends.
Now reading course material, making notes and working on assignments – and submitting on time (defined as studying in earlier student days) – is similar to if not the same as previous studying activities over the past 20 years. Not much change there from last century to this century.
And instead of pouring over the latest summer ‘must read’ book or topical magazines, substitute Digital Communication materials and articles. However, obtaining Internet access in order to connect with the course content and submit assignment requirements is a new 21st century experience.
And how to be able to work on the course material with family and friends while they are thumbing through their ‘must read’ material would be an interesting challenge to overcome. The best approach was to enlist the vacation entourage and engage them in the proceedings, and since engagement is a major theme of the Social Media program, this seemed an appropriate path.
So, enlisting the holiday makers to assist in locating Wi-Fi seemed an obvious winning solution. It turns out that McDonalds provide free Wi-Fi in their outlets, so this could be a destination location for assignment deadlines. That hurdle was solved relatively quickly.
The next step was finding content to write about. A blog of interesting observations or amusing vacation moments began to form as an idea. No sooner had this idea formed when an interesting observation was encountered.
As a family party of 4 travelling by busy trains between cities we encountered 3 of our reserved seats at a table occupied by a single male traveler sitting in an aisle seat. It was obvious to the single traveler that we were together as we determined which 3 would sit together while the fourth found their seat farther away. Can you guess what happened?
Rather than offering to give up the seat to let the 4 travelers remain together, the passenger decided to remain in their seat and break up the flock for the four hour journey. Is this what you thought would happen?
Certainly not a requirement on their part, but as a single traveler many times in the past, I have relocated to let a party remain together and not ‘crash’ their gathering and dislocate their group atmosphere. I believe this action to be based on a sense of awareness of situation and accommodation, or in the case of the lone traveler, not being aware or accommodating.
If you guessed the traveler would not give up their spot, could you try to explain why to me please.
acsocmedblog :spot for students of Algonquin Social Media Certificate class. 