Post # 3 Thoughts on Technologies

The first week of 808 seemed unreal - since when were students ~allowed~ to "play" with computers as part of the classwork?! This was a great thing to do because it was fun and it helps me to learn different technologies as part of a hands on process.

I'll admit that I might be able to get hooked into Second Life simply because I love exploring things and I'm curious to know what the boundaries are. Second Life is a good introduction since I suspect that the use of avatars will become more prevalent as time passes - if for nothing else than a new aspect in entertainment. (See the USA TV Network's character arcade for an example.)

We've tried a number of technologies other than second life: homepages, blogs, and film. With the exception of a blog that I use(d) to write about my travels, each of these was something that I always wanted to learn more about but never knew how to. It's great to have a class where learning each of these modules is a requirement. The only negative is that I feel restricted with my lack of experience in designing a webpage. How am I going to learn all of these cool tricks? (Remember tricks like up,up, down,down, left, right, left, right, select for Mario Brothers?) Somehow it doesn't seem as easy as playing video games but I already know the answer for why that is.

It's all a matter of time. If I sit here with my laptop for 3 hours tonight, googling for different advice and techniques, I will surely learn. I know that from past experience. Instead of doing that, though, I dedicate those hours to reading, browsing new texts, researching meaning for different questions that pop up in my reading, etc. For some reason, I'm finding it more challenging to carve out the computer time because it's so easy for me to get sucked up on the web and it doesn't seem as dedicated as reading does. Twisted, I see.

There is room in the classroom for these technologies. I've encouraged my fashion students to blog about fashion happenings in our area and one of them took me up on the idea. She used her blog to represent some of her work when applying for internships. I would love to create a homepage that could provide links for my first-year comp. course and also fashion research. I'm not yet sure where these practices fit in at the scholarly level for me. On a personal level I sense that learning and utilizing these technologies will cause me to grow in my thinking and to "keep up" with my students in the world of technological advances.