MEDIA MEDITATION#5 on Sailing

This will be a very interesting media meditation and I'm not exactly sure how it will work out. This summer I'm a sailing instructor and Camp Kippewa For Girls in Monmouth ME. Its a 2 month sleep away camp and when I went there for 7 years, it was the best thing ever. I'm excited to go back and teach sailing, but I haven't sailed since my sophomore year of high school, and mostly since my years at camp. Because of this I've started to use different media tools to review.

My first step in refreshing my memory was to set up google alerts for "Teaching Sailing", Sleep Away Camps", "Sailing", "Monmouth ME", and "Camp Kippewa". I would get bi-daily emails about these topics. The most useful ones were "Teaching Sailing" and "Sleep Away Camps". Of course I would get a lot of media clutter for websites like "Meet sailing singles" but I did get a good amount of useful information and tips on how to teach new sailers the basics. For myself the most useful thing was youtube videos such as this one.

It appealed to my limbic brain because I was able to see the images of sailing as apposed to the awful diagrams online. The voice of instructors telling me what should be done was a lot easier than reading page after page.

There was one blog that I really enjoy to follow is the American Sailing Association's blog http://asa.com/social_media. I think its great that they have a section of their webpage just for social media where they highlight their blog,youtube, facebook, and twitter! I also follow them on twitter@_ASA_. The ASA has been around for a long time and I'm sure they have had to make a lot of technological shifts, most recently twitter and their entire social media site. Everything is very well laid out and the pacing, lack of clutter, ownership, and value messages all come through very well. I would love to have a job where I could go around to companies and organizations revamping a section of their page and maybe even starting their social media. I dont learn the basic stuff on this section like how to teach kids to sail like I wanted to this summer. But i feel connected with the sailing community and really enjoy reading about all the things they have to say!

I've learned quiet a bit and also found great places online to order myself a new life jacket, rash guards, sunglasses, and everything else someone might need to be an awesome sailing instructor!