Part 1 of the Assignment is complete #edcmooc

Done, with a couple hours to spare.  Barely.  I'm a little disappointed.  You can find it over here:  Your (Corporate) Education #edcmooc.  Aside from being all over the place with my theme, which at first made things difficult to nail down, I struggled with the Prezi software I used.  I was trying to work from a blank template but found it to be very unstable.  I eventually capitulated and went with one of the predefined templates and things worked much more smoothly.  So, me or Prezi; not sure which was the issue but in the end I was able to finish the assignment.

However, it didn't end up being nearly as rich as what I had originally intended.  I had parallels to the Blog, allusions to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, visuals that reflected the idea of the digital rabbit hole I find myself going down when it comes to technology and so much more.  The course was very rich in content and there were so many ways to go.  In the end I'm comfortable with my final submission and I really enjoyed the class.  I'm not entirely finished yet - I still have to review 3 of my peers' work.  Looking forward to that.

I hope to continue this Blog but there are a number of others that have been neglected over the past number of weeks that are wanting my attention.  So until next time.

(2nd) Sight #EDCMOOC

So I've watched Sight again and I find that I like it even more the second time.  It really pushes the message that a Utopian veneer can easily hide a Dystopian reality underneath.  This is such a popular theme in storytelling, both on the page and the screen.

It's a very rich story considering it is less than 8 minutes long.  There are issues of disconnection from society while being exceedingly connected to technology.  There are privacy issues.  Moral issues.  And ultimately, the protagonist is likely a sociopath.  Indeed, just as he can restart a level when he makes a mistake while chopping cucumbers, so too does he feel that a reset is in order when his date decides she doesn't want to spend any more time with him.  While we've all probably been in a situation where we would love to be able to reset a date that has gone wrong, Patrick doesn't just cross a line, he completely eliminates the line.

Whereas the Microsoft and Corning Utopian advertisements push a "better" world, reliant on their technologies, Sight is a moral tale.  It's purpose is not to glorify technology and the benefits it provides; it is quite clearly denouncing the Utopian vision.  Or at the very least, peeling back the curtain to expose what can be wrong with that vision.

Plurality is another short movie about the potential for technology that is purported to improve society actually making it worse.  We don't ever learn what the future holds but the story makes it clear that the benefits of the technologically advanced society do not outweigh the trouble those advances also bring.  I really liked both of these films.  I think I lean more towards this likelihood - that we go into it believing that we have created and adopted something that works for the greater good, but are always ultimately blindsided by something that was out of our scope and ultimately makes the whole thing less beneficial overall.  This is once again where being human comes into play - we believe in the fable of a Utopia that is within our grasp but the reality is even the best intentions will be undermined.  But it's not the technology that will do it; not on its own at least.  It's always us behind it.  That is our blind spot.  Or someone stands to gain. That is our flaw.  And the technology is always just a means.

Sight #EDCMOOC

Just watched this one.  Wanted to quickly throw it up on the blog but I need some time to think about it.  My first thoughts are that it once again shows that one person's utopia can be another's dystopia.  And the theme of pulling back a veil to reveal the Truth is well portrayed here too.  Which has me thinking of The Wizard of Oz.  If nothing else, this course has me making many connections.  More later.

#EDCMOOC Week 2

Here are a couple more videos that were provided as part of our Week 2 resources.

Whereas the Week 1 videos and resources had us looking at how we have viewed technology in the past, these have us looking to the (possible) future.  Again, we look at these with a view towards reflections on utopia/dystopia.  In the case of these two videos, my immediate thoughts are that both are presented as idealized futures where technology integrates fully and seamlessly into our everyday lives.  Information is truly at our fingertips.  We are connected to one another by means of this technology.  Everything is clean, smooth, uncluttered.

But these are the visions being created by large corporations that have an end goal of profit.  Profit is not in itself a bad thing, but I see the echoes of the discussions from Week 1 around movies like Wall-E in these videos.  We see the rosy future being advertised without the consideration of potential negative implications.  In Wall-E the advertisements were (still) on a constant loop even after Earth had been abandoned because it had become unlivable as a result of all of the trash (consumables).  Another concern is the power and influence that would come with being a company whose products were so completely enmeshed into the population's everyday life.  Again, visions of Wall-E, where the goals of the corporation supersede the rights of the consumers.  The concern is that checks and balances are abandoned when the level of influence becomes so great.  Security becomes another issue.  With information so readily available, the implications for the security of that information (personal or business-related) increase.

There are another few videos with this week's resources that I still need to review.  I'll post on them as well as exploring the various conversations occurring in other blogs, on Twitter, in the forums, etc.

And this... #EDCMOOC

Thanks to David Hopkins over at Technology Enhanced Learning Blog for both his take on #EDCMOOC (so far) and for pointing me to this video.  It kind of speaks to another issue that is a bit of a combination of some of my earlier points.  I guess maybe the word oversight encapsulates it for me.  The video references some of the things we're going to have to start thinking about in new ways in light of Web 2.0.  Things like copyright, authorship, privacy, and so on.  But who is we?  How do we influence the world wide web in any sort of significant way?  We can leverage its power of connectivity for starters.  People are already doing that in meaningful ways.  Think of this course and in fact the entire Coursera offering for that matter.  But still, can we really make an impact?  More to digest.

Another Thought to Pursue #EDCMOOC

In space no one can hear you scream.  And amidst all the noise of the net, no one can see your little blog.  Anonymous.  Alone in a crowd of millions.

#EDCMOOC

More First Impressions #EDCMOOC

The connections that avail themselves to us in a digital world are as I mentioned earlier both a wonder and a curse.  I love that a Tweet from a stranger piques my interest and I'm led to an article that has me contemplating the future of education.  But the problems, off the top of my head, because I'm just stream of consciousness-ing here, as I see them are:

1) The excess of Tweets, Blogs, websites, FB groups, etc. etc. etc. - there is just so much content that it creates a virtual cacophany of digital noise.  Choice is lovely when you're choosing between chocolate or vanilla ice cream.  Then along comes someone offering 31 flavours, and suddenly your 20 second decision has been compounded immeasurably.  Now digitize your cone and pick your flavour from every connection the internet has to offer.  The choice can become overwhelming, to the point of paralysis.  Or you can choose to not choose, purposefully choosing nothing.

2) Each connection brings you to another.  And so on.  Down the rabbit hole.  Not in a one pill makes you larger sort of way, although that would be implied in point 1.  This is a turning and twisting and jumping that starts you out researching organic flea repellant for your pooch and finds you 20 minutes later exploring the cultural practices of the ancient Incas.  It can be hard to stay focused because there is just so damn much out there, available at the stroke of a few keys.  So many choices.

3) That medley of information, for me at least, lacks cohesion.  So while I am grateful for the resources that allow me to research both organic flea repellant and Incan culture, I often find myself without any clear path for where I am going and what I am trying to achieve.  It is distracting.  It's great for Trivial Pursuit, but I must admit I haven't played that in awhile.  My point is that while the tools for exploring and learning and understanding any topic are there, there is so much noise that often nothing is accomplished.

4) The sheer volume of content while seemingly a positive thing, also means that it becomes harder and harder for the content that has true value for anyone is harder to find.  How do you get your content noticed?  Not a new problem as any marketing executive will readily tell you.  But the fact that the barrier to entry for adding digital content to world wide web is almost completely absent means that the volume of content is incalculable.

So there you have it, for now anyway.  My struggles with the content creators, the infrastructure itself and then the actual content.  Utopia/Dystopia.  Two sides of the same coin as someone already tweeted.

I also want to explore the parallels between the topics we are discussing here in #EDCMOOC and the Game Theory course I'm currently taking through Coursera as well.  Specifically, I'm just going through some game scenarios where time and choice are coming into play.  It was interesting for me that there was this intersection of topics in two very different courses that I am currently involved in.  But more on that later.

Another area that interests me is the idea of The Matrix.  I'm not a huge fan although I think it was a fine movie.  What intrigues me is the premise.  I'm also not a conspiracy hound, but I enjoy the idea of it.  So while I don't think there is one secret world government that oversees the internet and uses it to keep us all down, I like exploring the possibility that there could be a veil that might be pulled aside at some point to reveal the Truth.  Note the capitalization, courtesy of Plato.  More on this later too, possibly.

See, this is what I'm talking about.  And this is where the Being Human topic for #EDCMOOC comes into play.  Like the internet, we humans are both physically a set of connections and options (organs, bones, nerves),  emotionally/socially (see my ramblings in my Why? post) and intellectually (I'm exploring the primary themes of this course but now I've got at least 3 distinct areas of interest that I can explore further).  FOCUS KID!