"There is no substitute for face-to-face reporting and research." --Thomas Friedman
I'm not usually very critical of people whom I don't perceive as predatory and mean. When I critique the efforts of nicer people, I strive to be pleasant and reasonable. I write this post in that spirit, since we have two professors who are clearly genuinely jazzed about their topic.
Private contemplation and peaceful surroundings are my preferred venue. However, I realize that if you need a job, or if you want to get a real feel for things, you have to go out and "press the flesh." Most of the jobs I have gotten in my life I got because I knocked on a door and shook someone's hand. When it comes down to it, I think we miss a lot of information when we can't do that. Therefore, I believe that the acme of electronic interaction would be to imitate the face-to-face experience as closely as possible.
I don't think we imitated that terribly well last Friday. Between the distraction of ongoing Tweets (I don't multi-task well), my own constant stream of thoughts (a veritable parallel reality that I must deal with at all times and that I know distracts me more than most people's does), and the deflation of expecting a live guest speaker, but instead seeing a frozen image on a screen of two women who couldn't hear us, I felt a bit disconnected and distant. I couldn't tell where the center of the action was. Plus, it was dark. I went into a similar mode that I went into during filmstrips in Mr. McCann's history class in 8th grade.
I love tech, but next time, I think maybe it needs to be Skype or something. Certainly, the center of the action was the relationship that Buffy and Kristin have cultivated. I would have liked to see that in a format in which the natural back and forth of two friends and colleagues communicating could better have been realized. So, that's my feedback: moving image; better back and forth communication; as close to live and "face-to-face" as possible.
This class is really great, though, in that we get to explore all of these tools and platforms. Do keep them coming!
Monte
Thanks for the generous spirit of your comments and suggestions, Monte. Sorry for the mental cacophony. I wish that we could have had a "do-over," but since that's not an option, I'll just say that I think there's something to be said for the webinar modality and I hope that in the course of presenting and attending webinars in November that the tool will come off better. In a small group setting, webinars have seemed intimate and inclusive in ways that I like...we'll see, eh?
ReplyDeleteHi Monte! Good to hear that I wasn't the only one that felt overwhelmed by all the different things that were going on in class last Friday. I think as we are required to present and attend more webinars, we might begin to see the usefulness of them? Maybe? We'll see...
ReplyDeleteHey, Monte!
ReplyDeleteI agree that way too much was going on Friday. The fact that we had technical difficulties with the webinar was pretty distracting, as was our classmates' constant twatter (like my new word?) And maybe there were a couple other distracting things too, but I won't go into that.
Your intro to this entry serves as a nice reminder to all of us as future teachers that if others are critical of our teaching methods (and that will definitely happen to all of us), it is important to remember that the criticism is by no means meant as a personal attack. Rather, it helps build more positive teacher-student relationships.
This is probably the least amount of humor I've put in any of my comments thus far. I am so sorry if that offends you, but you know what? HEY, FLYING MONKEY!!! SHINY!
There.
-Stephanie
Great points about feeling disconnected and distant from the conversation when the video froze. I wrote about that in my blog as well, saying that if you are using this in a classroom with high school students and the technology was acting up like it did in our classroom, you would lose the high school students very fast. It was more annoying than helpful.
ReplyDeleteThanks for your comment on my post about Iran! I'm glad you had time to watch the video. When you think of twitter being used in situations like those in Iran last summer, you really do realize the democratizing force technology can play. Knowledge is power, and with technology everyone has access to that knowledge--it's what we do with it that matters.
-Mallory
I completely agree Monte, my biggest problem with the "guest speakers" was having to only listen to them. I am not an auditory learner, not even close, I cannot learn something is someone simply reads it to me and I have a very difficult time internalizing a conversation if I cannot see the people who are talking. It almost would have been better for me if this had been a prerecorded presentation.
ReplyDeleteJulia