“Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.” —Mahatma Gandhi
I found this quote as I was reading through some of the blogs featured in the edcmooc news. It has no real relevance to our theme of Utopia and Dystopia but I like the idea of learning for as long as you live and living life as fully as you can.
Living in the here and now – is that what the characters in the “Inbox” were doing? Making the most of a random opportunity, responding to a situation, communicating, connecting, building futures? Utopian or dystopian? Once the connection was made there was hope, when the link was broken, hope remained. Makes me think of La Condition Humaine – Man’s Fate – an existentialist state where man chooses his own path, his own destiny, which dictates how people communicate with each other and how they interact with the world.
“Existentialists believe that when someone or society tries to impose or demand that their beliefs, values, or rules be faithfully accepted and obeyed it destroys individualism and makes a person become whatever the people in power desire thus they are dehumanized and reduced to being an object.”
So where am I going with this? I’m not really sure but I have a glimmer of something in the back of my mind that is glinting that I can’t quite grasp!
Does technology, do the shiny, pretty things, the gadgets and gizmos, the tweets, FB, the constant updates impose rules, beliefs, values on us that we don’t want to accept? Do we risk losing our individualism and our personal freedom? Or do they offer us the opportunity to discover ourselves, to find out who we are, to unlock our potential, and find happpiness? Or is that just too black and white? Are there more shades of grey? Do we need to recognise that life is an essential mixture of utopian and dystopian experiences?
and I wonder if pechaflickr could be a way to go – quite random but certainly an option! Why not have a play!
I found “Thursday” an interesting short. My first thought was how similar the street grid system seen from above like the grids on the old computer games but I agree with some of the comments on the discussion board that the street grid system is like a computer motherboard. Are we all living in a huge game? Where do reality and make-believe merge? Can we escape the automation of daily life and choose our own destiny? Maybe that is what the couple were doing when they went on their outing on Thursday?
I think that the way that the bird mimics the sounds around it is like the way that we have copied nature’s designs to build machines. It is ironic, but also we adapt the way we act and speak to fit in with our surroundings especially when we are in unfamiliar or challenging situations so as not to stand out and as a way to survive. Maybe this is a dystopian struggle for survival? But then if their day of escapism is hope for the future maybe it has a utopian element?
Other people have commented on the sadness of the people’s dependence and absorption in their gadgets, their machines and how when the power went out they found themselves bereft of anything to do. Is that dependence stripping us of the ability to be creative, to think for ourselves?
It is certainly the cry of lots of parents, and I hear myself saying it to my children too! When we turn off the internet or tell them that their time is up on their computers or tablets they mope around for half an hour until they remember (or are reminded) that there are other things to do! We try to play family games but I am frustrated by how infrequently we do that now since my husband and I too are often to be found with our heads staring at a computer screen. It is also easy to let our kids play on computers – a cheap babysitter, just as the TV has been the baby sitter in previous years – so that we can get on with what we need to do.
Interestingly, I have observed that my boys communicate more through the medium of computer games than face to face. Of course, they still have the rough and tumble of brotherly play, they are both keen sports players and we spend a reasonable amount of time outdoors. But the games they play require them to play as a team against another team, so they have to discuss strategy, make decisions, build things and interact. Sometimes they do this sitting next to each other as in the photo, sometimes they are in separate rooms, and it maybe that when the older brother goes away later this month they will play across continents. I think that the skills they are learning and developing during this play time will help them to grow as adults and help them in their lives.
Prince Harry said recently of his role in Afghanistan working as a helicopter gunner “It’s a joy for me. I am one of those people who loves playing Playstation and XBox and so I am good with my thumbs, I like to think that I am quite useful.” Those comments have caused quite a stir but I think that he is right – I have read research (but can’t quite find sources just now) that suggests that parts of the brain are stimulated when playing computer games which help in quick decision making and manual reflexes.
The interactive nature of computer games now is, I believe, far preferable to one on one games that require interaction only between the computer and the player. A friend of mine remarked on that the other day when I went to pick up my 13 year old from his friends’ house. They are twins and when I arrived, my son was playing an interactive game with one of them, they were in separate spaces in an open plan area so we could see both of them and they spent the whole time talking to each other, deciding who was going to do what, which bounty to collect, how to attack, counter-attack, defend etc. The other twin was playing on a handheld device, completely self-absorbed and seemingly isolated. That is not to say that there isn’t a place for one to one time, but a healthy balance is needed.
Which brings me to the idea in the film that people are so governed by their machines that they no longer notice the world around them. It is easy to see how this can happen – computer games are addictive and it is for that reason that I avoid them; I know I will get sucked in, I know because it has happened to me! Fortunately, I don’t think I have a particularly addictive personality and I usually get bored after the mania has run its course and I move onto the next thing. But I do have a busy and demanding job, one that I love, but the demands of the job mean that I often come home from work and then immediately sit down at the computer and start again because I have stuff that I have to do for the next day. I find myself missing out on the things I really love doing like spending time with my family, being outdoors in the hills or by the sea.
I am doing this course because the subject interests me but it too means that I am focussed on the computer. Fortunately, it is summer here and I am sitting in the garden with cicadas chirruping, birds singing and the smell of the roses all around me.
As a family we do get out and about and it is always refreshing to leave the gadgets behind and play cards or boards games actually using a pack of cards and a board rather than on the gadgets! However, we did find that this year on holiday we were still slaves to our gadgets; we used them to check the weather forecast, Google maps helped us find the way, (better than an in-car Sat Nav), we could find out what to do in different places, Google Goggle was a great for identifting the names of landmarks and giving us additional information on the hoof and then I am hooked on Instagram at the moment so photos were edited and uploaded as I took them, and my husband and I had a mini competition going on as to who could check in to 4square first whenever we went to a cafe! Gadgets in cars to keep kids amused are great too and stop the incessant refrain of “Are we nearly there?”
But did we miss out on the world around us by having our gadgets on us the whole time? I don’t think we did; I think that in many ways they helped us to look at the world in a different way. I enjoy photography and using instagram has encouraged me to look at what is around me from a different perspective – I like to upload photos that say something to me, they are contextual, they also reflect who I am as a person. I still use my SLR camera for more planned shots but the immediacy of a camera on my mobile phone fulfils my need for instant gratification and feedback from my followers!
Keeping a balance is important and I know there are times when, as a family, we fail. However, I think on the whole we do a pretty good job and hopefully the boys will maintain that when they no longer have us as guardians of cyberspace.
On that note, I am taking a break. Going for a coffee with my husband who is also engaged in a Mooc and needs dragging away!
So, I have finally started! Just read through all the course information and had a moment of rising panic as the Tweets rolled round to the left of the page as I tried to concentrate! Read that one person is going to use Tum,blr to collate all his thoughts, somebody else has created a pearltree (first distraction – had to find out what a pearltree was!), then noticed that lots of people have created a special blog just for the course. Is that what I should do? How am I going to collate all the resources? Is one supposed to? I have no idea how to go about all of this but have decided that there is no right or wrong way and am about to take the plunge.
I will carry on blogging here, after all “E-Learning and Digital Cultures” is a part of my Learning Journey. I will put the resources here and try to address some of the questions here too as well as Tweeting and Google +. I have decided to sideline FB – too many other distractions and I need to focus! So, video No 1 – Bendito Machine III
What is this film suggesting are the ecological and social implications of an obsession or fixation on technology? Do the film’s characters have any choice in relation to their technologies? What are the characteristics of various technologies as portrayed in this film?
I guess in a “throwaway” society where companies plan the release of new models of technological gadgets then market them so aggressively to a very specific target audience, the ecological impact on our fragile earth is significant. How much rubbish with dangerous chemicals leeching out can the world absorb? We have a garage littered with old technology – television, cassette players, cameras, record players, computers, and none of them are more than twenty years old. Already binned either because they no longer work, or more likely because something newer, smaller and shinier came along. Humans have always vied to have the latest and the brightest new thing – it is not a new phenomenen. But technology is developing at a phenomenal rate and advertising plays on our weakness for “oneupmanship”, to go one better than the Joneses. It has become an obsession and I think that as in the film, we end up having no choice. We see acquiring the next new gadget as the way to happiness, to instant gratification, to being successful…. (oops tea is ready – better continue later!)
But can we build some sort of sustainability of practice? If we look at Roger’s bell curve of adoption, there are the innovators and early adopters, the folk that grasp the new shiny things, experiment with them, develop ways of using them, share ideas and practice and then move on. Which leaves the next wave of people – the majority who wait for new technologies to be tried and tested before adopting them and maybe adapting the ways they can be used. Again, I don’t think this is anythig that diverges from historical social behaviour. We are all different, some people are predisposed to taking risks, others to more thoughtful behaviour and yet more who are risk averse. The rate at this development is taking place now is different? Or is it?
Ray Kurzweil talks about exponential growth – the rate of adopting new technologies is doubling every decade. Biological and technological evolution are inextricably linked, adoption and interaction of new technologies create a capability that enables the next stage of development.
History suggests that our society can cope with change, it can cope with obsession, but can it cope at the rate change is happening now? Parents have always complained about their children asking for the latest technology “because all my friends have it”! They still do, and they always will because, as I have already said, it is part of human nature. They also always say “Ooh, it was never like this in our day! Life was much simpler…” and that too is true and they will continue to say it in the future.
I ma starting to ramble so it is probably time to stop….not sure if I have answered the questions!
Nitty gritty time! I started this morning at 7.30am with a list of SIX things I needed to do before school starts tomorrow. I have managed to do TWO of them. Only six you say? That’s because my brain is already frazzled and I could only think of that many and make a note of them on my phone memo. Several more happened along the way this morning and snuck their way in, have been ticked off and consigned to the “done that” pile.
Then I get an email from Coursera to say that the “elearning and digital cultures” course is now open! Too early, not ready, upset the planning I had! Dilemma – do I stick to my planned list of things to do or do I dive headlong into edcmooc!?
I think for my own peace of mind I have to stick to my plan, take a walk around the garden, clear my head and then do the jobs on the list before facing the unknown challenges of “Elearning and Digital Cultures”,
Oh dear, a couple of days of not reading blogs and tweets and Facebook and I am lost again! I am trying not to get overwhelmed and distracted, interesting as all the edcmooc threads are, and concentrate on the work I need to do for my day job! I spent a day yesterday trying to plan my Spanish Scheme of Work; I have lots of ideas but I don’t seem to be able to focus on one thing and am diverted when I start to search for resources and find something else which I get excited about but which distracts me from what I should be doing! (take a breath!) I think I have quite a lot of lesson plans but they are all a bit disjointed at the moment and I need some order to my thoughts. My good friend Allyn helped me get my head around the quagmire of NCEA as this is the first year I will be teaching the new standards and I think I know where I am going now on that particular journey. I just need to FOCUS!!
Then I decided to check my school emails – oh dear! More things to do – I should never have looked! I have just spent an hour sorting out things that really could have waited until Thursday if I hadn’t looked today! How does one manage not to multi-task and just concentrate on one thing?
Maybe I should switch off the computer and go back to a pen and a book?
Thanks to Katey Mack for the great photo. If you are in Cumbria check out the Wolfhouse Kitchen – awesome eatery
….or should that be “foto fun” or even “photo phun”? As a linguist I hate it when I see the “ph” in words changed to “f” out of laziness or ignorance. However, the creative part of me quite likes it. I also know through studying languages that the English language is the way it is today because of the influence of a whole heap of invaders, settlers, movement, experiences and evolution. It is inevitable that many of our spelling conventions will change as they already have done over the years. The French have the “Academie Francaise” to police their language, and debates over such things as the use of the accent and the invasion of English words to express modern inventions are common wherever you go in France. But are they fighting a losing battle? Maybe the fluidity, the flexibility, the freedom of English has helped it become the lingua franca it is today?
Anyway, as usual I digress; the reason for this post was simply to comment on the photos I just posted to the edcmooc Flickr group. One of the course participants suggested that people might like to submit a photo that epitomised our ideas of a mooc. Mine is really just an image that reflects my feelings at the moment and I expect them to change – maybe we should also get people to submit a photo at the end of the course to see how our ideas have developed?
The first image, “A confusion of networks” reflects the confusion I sort of feel at the moment – so many connections, so many threads …. I edited my own photo using ipiccy which is a free application that is really easy to use. I tried to find logos that were free to use but have a record of the websites I got them from. Always find that a tricky thing to manage! Photo originally taken in Pnomh Penh in 2011.
“A confusion of networks”
The second image “Finding the Balance” is how I hope to feel when I have managed to get some balance with all the different connections that edcmooc seems to be! I used ipiccy again. This photo was originally taken in Dalat, Vietnam.
“Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.” —Mahatma Gandhi
