This was going to be my second post on the Islay Education 2020 unconference, but that’s going to have to wait a little. I’ve just come out of hospital after having an operation on my knee. It was one of those not-too-serious ops, but one which has a reputation for being quite painful during recovery. And as I lie here on my couch under the influence of some serious players in the painkiller rankings, its a reputation which is certainly true, but if it allows me to put off a knee replacement for another couple of years than I guess it will be worth the couple of weeks of suffering.

Now the real point of this short post, I guess is on social networking. Many of us use networks such as Twitter as a large part of our professional learning networks. Many even proclaim it to be their ‘Google’. All justified, and of course, I use it in this way as well, but that I also use it as a social network for chat and conversation, and its a great addendum to my face to face social life. It was this on-line support that really came into its own earlier this week as I was about to go into hospital. Having a strong reliable support network is vital to everyone’s health and well being, particularly in the ever stressful jobs many of us in education do, and my twitter network is a significant part of my own support system. I’d like to think that we all recognise the need for a good support network in life and furthermore, realise how effective our on-line networking can be in contributing to this. Those who decry on-line networking ( as a few misguided souls did during the unconference) as a poor substitute for face to face contact are missing the point somewhat, I think. In this increasingly global environment in which we live and work, face to face meeting can be very rare, limited by much more than geography. Strong relationships can and are established on-line, something which was very apparent on Islay last weekend as even those who had never met face to face established an ease of conversation that would normally have only happened amongst close friends who might meet face to face many times. research is increasingly backing this up, and I can certainly attest to how powerful this support has been to me on quite a few occasions over the past year or so, and in particular this week.

So a big thank you to all who tweeted and DM’d their best wishes. I hope you know I’m there for you should you ever need this type of support.