Blogging on the Brain

I recently had the pleasure of attending a session of Baylor’s Summer Faculty Institute, a program dedicated to the discussion and improvement of teaching practices at Baylor. This particular day, we heard Gardner Campbell speak about Information Communication Technologies (ICT) including the iphone, web2.0, delicious, twitter, blogging, kindles, ipads, etc. For those of you who may know Gardner, it was, as would be expected, a delightful look at the possiblities these technologies hold for us as teachers (and continual learners, for that matter). It was, however, very interesting to be in this room as at least some of the SFI participants were hearing about and seeing these things for the first time.

I was recently in their position; I had never used twitter or blogged before I began to work with the ATL, and just like my experience, there was quite a variety of  reactions. The position I resonated the most with was one that at least a couple of people spoke up about in the room – pretty strong skepticism. Before I got to know these technologies, I was pretty skeptical about their use for me personally as well as in the classroom (”don’t let kids have their laptops – or, God forbid, phones out during class, they’ll just mess around!”). Over the last year and a half, though, I’ve come to look at things very differently. While some may argue that the fast-paced nature of the internet/texting/etc. keeps you from slowing down or reflecting, I would argue that I’ve never reflected so much on anything as I have since I started blogging. As far as isolation, I actually came across a quote today (thank you, google quote-of-the day) that I think makes a pretty valid point about internet use:

“The Internet is like alcohol in some sense. It accentuates what you would do anyway. If you want to be a loner, you can be more alone. If you want to connect, it makes it easier to connect.” ~Esther Dyson

While it was a little hard to hold my tongue when people flatly objected to the use of these new technologies, I think that if they at least give these tools a chance and really look at the potential good they could accomplish, they’ll come around eventually. I think Gardner gave us a beautiful example of what the internet can provide when he showed us a youtube video of a “virtual choir” – 185 participants from 12 countries all made videos of themselves singing their part in the same piece of music while watching a video of the director. The videos were then all compiled to make the final product – a tribute, I think, to the incredible power that the internet has to bring us closer together and allow people to participate in something beautiful that wouldn’t have been possible otherwise.