Tick, Tock, Clock...

"This is your life, and it's passing you one by one minute at a time..."

Look at the picture to the right ->

Does it look familiar? Well it shouldn't, if you're getting as much as you can out of your classes. Sometimes, I'll get a class that is so enthralling, I'm heavily involved and don't even realize when class is over. Sometimes, I'll get a class that's so numbingly difficult I hype myself up on coffee and tape my eyelids open so that I don't miss anything, but usually end up doing so anyway. Most of the time, I'm watching that little red hand go steadily around on its race track. I'm trying to employ the latent telekenisis powers I unfortunately don't possess to will the long black hand quickly to the big 12 at the top. I'm "stretching out my back" to get hopeful and dissapointing glances at this merciless dictator.

Why should class be like this? Shouldn't I feel my mind expanding, forming new synapses in my brain while I absorb intruiging content? Or should I feel rooted to my seat by some cruelly smug invisible force while I feel my cells slowly decay with age? A few days ago, I realized that one of my professors was drawing EVERY example and lecture out of the book. We ate up countless minutes of the hour painfully sketching intricate graphs that were printed for us in the books we dropped a hundred bucks or more for. I groaned as internally as possible as the professor entertained the most mundane and irrelevant questions about the nutritional value of icecream, the evils of collegiate beauracracy, and the trials and tribulations of marriage. I'm not going to give him away because he seems like a nice guy, but let's just say that the class has nothing to do with any of these in anything but the farthest stretch of a diseased imagination. I decided enough was enough. I waited until the break, packed my bags discretely, and didn't return. I went and got my allergy shots at the Palo Alto clinic. I made myself a great meal at home, and read the chapter we had been talking about. I used the online resource that came with the book to quiz myself briefly, and with a cumulative study time of about half an hour, I was confident in the material and had gotten a lot done. I took the test today, and breezed through it. There was one question that I was even at all unsure about, and even then I'm pretty sure about my answer. The only negative I suffered from electing to use my time efficiently was that I missed a hand-out that was given at the end of class.

The teacher hadn't taken any time to discuss the hand out, and we ended up doing it the next class because no one did it anyway. Had he collected the hand out, I would've lost points because I didn't want to dwindle my life away in that ridiculously under-sized desk not learning the subject matter. You know what could've been done? The handout could've been posted online. In fact, the way this specific instructor "teaches" the class could be conducted entirely online. It is, but the fact is how is anyone to know that the instructor is going to teach this way before it's too late to do anything about it? I specifically chose this course as an in-class endeavor because I thought I'd benefit from the face-to-face interaction. But I come to class to get something extra, to go more in depth. I'm the kind of guy who can benefit a lot from an enganging teacher and a fervent class discussion. I'm the kind of guy who prefers to waste a hundred dollars on a text book and sell it back at the end of the quarter, having not opened it at all if I can get away with it, simply because the lecture was so informative. If we're learning directly and exclusively out of the text, please let me do it on my own time, in my own manner. The PA clinic only does allergy shots from 8:30-11:30, and every discussion about why using Big Macs in an example isn't politically correct is costing me potential salvation from congestion.

I've spoken on my online Music class before, how it employed eTudes to deliver tests and quizzes, announcements, and essay questions. The text was throrough and interesting while the open book exams were designed in a manner that ensured you read every word. Another facet of this class was that it was what I consider "hybrid". A student had the option of coming into class when he/she wanted to. The instructor gave credit for turning in class worksheets and class notes, and posted a schedule of what chapter would be taught each class so you could keep up and decide on classes you wanted to go to. Since the grading system was based entirely on accumulated points, students had incentive to go to class if they didn't understand the material and were doing poorly (not only to further their understanding, but also to get extra points). I never went to a physical class and got an A doing everything online, but I'm sure that if I did go to class I wouldn't feel that I was wasting my life away. I'd know that I was there only because I wanted/needed to be, and that if class wasn't helping me I'd have the option of not attending with no artificially ill consequence. After all, Big Macs are only so interesting for so long...

Digital Existence: living through the fingers.

Image from http://www.additudemag.com

Engage me or Engrage me?


The discussion topic this week has sparked a reflection of my life and the life of someone close to me, my little brother. We're only five years apart, but I feel like we are clearly from different generations. Maybe I'm just behind my own times? Something about Penksy's Speech really disturbed me, but the more I think about it, I can't pin my finger on exactly why. Every day when I go home from work, I expect to find my brother sitting in front of our computer, clicking away. Once in a blue moon he won't be there, and for a brief moment I'll trip out and wonder "Is he ok!? Did he get kidnapped walking back from school!?" Then I'll hear the tell-tale flush of the toilet or the clink of dishes in the sink and he'll come trodding back into his throne, from which he commands his universe. When dinner is out, I actually have to remind him that it's time to eat, and he finishes as fast as possible so that he can return to his game. I'm left with the unshakeable suspicion that he only eats to sustain conciousness so he can continue raiding his dungeon or whatever he's doing. He takes breaks to watch TV occaisionally. More often, he has the TV on while he's on the computer, so that in the brief loading times or down times, he can simply turn and tune immediately in to the program he's pre-recorded. The only time he's not on his computer or watching TV, is when he's reading or doing his homework from school.

The constant stream of video games has definately benefited his education in many ways. He was reading at an earlier age than I did, not to mention he can read extraordinarily fast. Paragraphs flash for nanoseconds on the TV screen when he's playing video games, and I often have to ask him to slow it down or at least tell me what the little characters are saying. My one shred of technological pride stems from the fact that I can type faster than he can, but not by much. He's great at math. His online games require him to keep track of hit points, of magic points, of fake money, of armor statistics and all manner of numbers and calculations. He understands the concepts of memory, of pixels, of terms that would make me look foolish if I repeated them, because I can't even begin to fathom what they mean. At 13 years old, he is programming his own games, with custom characters and animations. He has created a forum for him and his friends of which he has surprisingly many. I could go on, but I think you're getting the point. Video games have given him all these skills, and no doubt they will be valuable skills in the "real world".

Speaking of which, the lines between what is real and what is virtual have all but blurred into inexistence. I've delved briefly into his universes, and horrified that I'd be stranded, forcefully removed myself quickly. But for my brief stay, I have to say that I wasn't aware how far along gaming technology has come. I was immersed in a world that operated on real time. There were sunrises and sunsets, there was grass, there were beaches, there were seas and lakes. You could hunt animals or fish, ride trams and fly on mystical creatures. You could buy different clothing, you could fight evil, you could buy trinkets, dance, laugh, jump, cry... In a nutshell, you could live. What was scarier still, was that there were millions of other characters all over this massive world (which probably would've taken hours or days to traverse on foot) were REAL people playing the same game. They have unions, they have craftsmen, and there is a booming virtual economy. On a morbidly hilarious note, the in-game currency is actually worth more than the currency of some developing countries.

My point from all this, is that my brother and kids like them HAVE benefitted from this engaging new revolution. They've learned math skills, they've learned computer skills, they've even learned to interact with people ableit virtually. Acknowledging all this, it still scares me to death. Maybe I'm just old fashioned and, like I said before, behind the times. I don't really know what it is. All I know is that I'm going to continue to make my brother eat and sleep, and once in a while I'll have to throw him outside and lock the door for a few hours, if only to get him enough sun to process his calcium...

Customize your Life.

It seems like everything these days is about options. You go to a burger joint. Choose a burger out of a hundred different kinds, all with unique combinations of ingredients. Choose a side order: fries, curly fries, fried zucchini... Choose a drink. Want dessert?
The abundance of choice is event more prevalent in services offered online. Search engines offer custom homepages, where you can add anything from your email's inbox status to a local weather report to the recipe of the day. And for those of you in this honors seminar, did you see all the options for the look and feel of your blog?
This brings up an interesting topic for e-Portfolios. From our meager research we all already know that there's a plethora of different services out there, no doubt each with its own unique twist. Uniqueness is important, but how far should it go? An e-Portfolio is supposed to reflect the individual. Every individual is different in their own way, and the portfolio should show that. But also take into consideration that these ePortfolios are often used for professional reasons. If ePortfolios are to have any credibility and become a widely accepted way to present yourself to an employer, there needs to be standards and protocol. Imagine you're an employer, and you want to find out X, Y, and Z about potential applicants. A thousand applicants send you their ePortfolio, and every single one has their credentials in a different place, their philosophies in a different place, etc. That would be aggravating, and you probably wouldn't be in the best "hiring" mood.
I'm not sure where to draw the line. Like all things in life, it's obviously important to find a balance between individuality and conformity, between chaos and organization. How do you think an ePortfolio can accomodate a standard without stifling creativity?