In a word, fun!
In more than a word, I think that most of the learning that takes place is an electronic or digital version of a correspondence course. It really depends on your ability to be an autodidact.
I got my liberry degree via the Internet, and it was efficient and convenient. But being physically in the presence of an instructor and peers is better. Who hasn't been in a class in which the teacher pick up from the stony silence or the poker-faced expressions of the pupils that something isn't clicking? Online, students and teachers are unable to communicate via body language. A person can make a subtle point by speaking, controlling the tone and pace of the words, and with gestures. This is lost in the digital classroom.
On the other hand, if somebody wants to go on at length, many online classes have bulletin boards whereby a pupil can go on at length, and maybe someone will read it. Also, digital classes are able to reach students around the world - bringing education into the home as well as into the classroom. Also, the anonymity of the Internet allows students to make comments or ask questions without all that humiliation. On the other hand again, this means that you may not really know the person like you would in their physical presence. Think of the flickr video we watched. Nobody said this, but when I was attending school online it was common for someone to say that they would like to get to know the person behind the posts.
This course, again, is fun. I've enjoyed watching the videos, playing with the digital toys, etc. But it seems to be pretty self-referential. That is, you learn about blogs in order to make more blogs. Maybe these blogs have substantial importance outside of the cyber-world. We'll see.
In our location, there are only a few people who have really been able to collaborate in a side-by-side manner. Much of the interaction has been of the nature of advice and encouragement as one walks by the other on the computer. The major way we help each other is by ensuring that we have time away from the desk to pursue these opportunities.
2 comments:
Very good post 10speed. Let me see if I can add some value to your comments.
Your comment about a bulletin board made me realize that I missed that. I didn't provide a common area for discussion. Let me fix that. Thank you.
Yes, the course is very self-referential. You are blogging about your experiences blogging and interacting with technology. The self reflection process is a form of learning. When finished with the course, participants will have solid experience as both a consumer and producer of digital content.
Why is this important? The future of library catalogs will be very, VERY Web 2.0-ish. Many of the features found in the websites that we visit will be built into our future catalogs.
I try to do 25-30 miles a week on my bike!
Tom
The beauty of an RSS aggregator is that I can pull from one feed and give to another. Here is an example of what I was talking about above:
New Catalog
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