I've been blogging since 2007, however my blog has basically served as an online photo album. Starting a new blog in this class felt like a whole new experience. It was fun to create a specific place on the internet to express my ideas. The only thing I didn't enjoy about my blogging experience is that Google Blogger makes it impossible for me to cut and paste the content of my blog entries. I typically like to type anything I write in Microsoft Word and then paste it to the domain in which I want it. I wasn't able to do that.
It was fun to communicate in multiple ways throughout this course. It was even more fun to analyze the differences between different modes of communication. I have come to appreciate face-to-face interactions more as I've recognized all that we miss out on when we communicate via the internet. I value nonverbal cues now more than ever, especailly after revisiting memories of all of the misunderstandings internet communication created between my brother-in-law and I not all that long ago.
I learned a lot about our culture as this course progressed. Week after week I discovered how much of our internet communication is driven by an ever-increasing concern with efficiency. For the most part, we communicate online simply because it allows us to accomplish more in a shorter amount of time. We value efficiency and we value our own personal objectives. I've become a lot more familiar with the impact our individualistic culture has on our communication habits. Efficiency makes our goals easier to achieve so we often choose internet communication for its efficiency even at the expense of social harmony and/or group goals.
Postman suggests that modern education is failing because what is being taught has no moral, social, or intellectual center (Postman, p.186). I think that our education system produces people with plenty of marketable skills, who lack commitment and point of view, as he suggests because it is a lot more efficient to teach a "hodgepodge of subjects" than it is to try and tie knowledge together in a meaningful way. Maybe we shouldn't value efficienty quite so much.
Wood and Smith write that "computer technology is, at heart, an attempt to manipulate abstract data with physical tools" (W&S, p.208). So, does computer technology aid us in the process of discovering knowledge? I think it does. It helps us understand knowledge in new and meaningful ways. Can computer technology create new knowledge beyond what we can keep up with though? I am not so convinced. Wood and Smith mention how the Matrix Trilogy poses a question: "If all human experience can be replicated by software and if all human choices can be shaped by computer programs, how can an individual act as if his or her choice matters" (W&S, p.208)? They emphasize the energy our culture is putting into making sense out of the "emerging wired-world" (W&S, p.208). I agree with them that it is good to discern the relationship between technology and our lives instead of simply accepting that technology is changing popular culture.
3 comments:
I liked your post about this. I think I agree with you in the fact that blogging gives a creative way for expression on the internet, however sometimes I feel like "Freedom of Speech" is taken advantage of due to the lack of censorship. I found it interesting throughout the course to notice that the age differences between the students in the course seemed to dictate how much technology meant to them and how much it was a part of their every day life. My age of people tend to use internet religiously whereas someone about five years older than me might not be as comfortable with the idea of technology or even the freedom of speech through blogging.
I was also upset that we couldn't use a word program and then paste it to the blog! I don't know if it is necessarily more efficient to teach the "hodgepodge" as you say in your fourth paragraph. I think it is the university system's answer to trying to offer a broad-based undergraduate education while still appeasing the system by teaching "marketable skills." It would seem that universities could create some type of program that devoted the majority of the time "tying things together" prior to a "marketable skills option." Well, maybe you're right about it being inefficient. Maybe it's our responsibility to tie things together for ourselves.
Thats interesting that both you and Gabe had trouble cutting and pasting your posts. I usually wrote my posts up and cut and pasted them into the blogger program without any problems at all. Anyway, I agree with you in how much this class made me apreciate the face-to-face communication I do even more. And it really did highlight our societies obsession with effeiciency. I think we would all do good to just relax a little and not measure everything by time.
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