Week 4-Blog Posting #8-Reflection on Blogging.

For me, blogging has been a very interesting experience. Not an experience without frustration.

As I began this mod blogging was something totally foreign to me. Through the process of writing about, and posting to a blog on a regular basis I’ve discovered new writing skills.

At the same time, the frustration I have found with this blogging exercise has been not so much with the blog itself but the format in which we were doing it. In order to read other people’s thoughts, I have had to switch from one blog to another. I believe the goal of these assignments was to truly share information. A tool that would be much easier shared with the standard discussion window or perhaps even a threaded discussion if our FSO could handle it.

As I think back over the tools we've used in the last four weeks I find Web 2.0 a truly amazing conglomeration with the phenomenal ability to engage in social networking and social bookmarking I have truly extended the range of my data gathering and sorting abilities.

As my students and I move into learning 2.0 we are together discovering new ways of organizing data and sharing our lives with each other. One of the unfortunate side effects of too much information is multitasking, as I looked at my multitasking abilities I discovered the I could really do not want better work if I did not count the radio or television going on. It takes more and more time to shift from one activity to another. I have come to believe there is no such thing as true multitasking. But instead sequential task switching and as I become older it takes longer to switch those tasks.

As information piles on top of information I find myself in many ways suffering from future shock. "too much change in too short a period of time". (Toffler, A, 1972) the following video clips are from any documentary narrated by Orson Welles on Toffler’s groundbreaking work future shock.

Communities of practice will make this transformation much easier, by providing forums for the free exchange of ideas. These forums can now be used around the world with the aid of the Internet and social networking. Second Life even provides ways of moving through time and space to create meeting places for the 21st century.

References

Schanzer, K. (Associate Producer) (1972). Future Shock, Documentary film. From YouTube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Ghzomm15yE