A Reason To Smile
Something I  could not help smile about is George’s response to the question asking him to make a prediction about the future of education technology. He says there is no way to hold people accountable when they make predictions about the future. I think this made me smile because of course that is true but I am someone who finds futurism fun. I often get caught up in considering the future and spend a lot of my time thinking about how to influence the future instead of being in the present. I also like to think big and expansive and a lot of what I think about is how we can deconstruct the forces of capitalism, colonialism and extraction and foster change and care of communities and our planet through our work. So when he said there is no way to hold people accountable when they predict the future I can hear that but it doesn’t mean I am going to stop thinking about it because that’s some fun stuff to ruminate on.  Also I can’t. I completely cannot stop thinking about the future. I won’t be publishing my predictions though because I have read a lot of what I perceive to be nonsense from futurists too (cough, cough K-n St–l-). Being a serial futurist is probably not the most valid type of work to be doing.

A Reason To Research
The literature review advice was super helpful. I have been struggling to understand how to go about a literature review, or even understanding what it is. I went to the library to get some answers but they basically told me I was not ready for that yet and shooed me away from that and we focused on some other questions I had about research. George just gave it to us straight almost in a checklist which I find super helpful and this has got me unstuck. It is hard for me to understand things without applying them in some ways. I am the ultimate experiential learner where I need to do things and then reflect on them to learn anything so I created this branching scenario from Georges’ post about scope of research to help me understand how to apply what he is saying to a literature review.

A Reason To Be Free
In the first response where George talked about the risk students take in posting blogs I took heart in my recent approach to my blog and social media presence.  I am posting a lot of different things and just trying stuff with my digital presence that I would not have attempted or been interested in before embarking on MALAT.  I came to this program a bit afraid to post online but as the course progresses I find myself taking more risks in making a digital presence because we are reading so much about how creating a pro-social presence helps the learning take place. When George talks about how there is so much on the web and that it is not as easy to come across our online work as we think it is I took that as permission to keep going. When I really think about it I think I take more risks in my face to face classroom because I don’t know who I am getting there and we are live and in person. I have had students who have had strong reactions to me and have pushed my buttons in similar ways to what Parker Palmer calls “the student from hell”. To me that feels far more risky than posting a blog online. The takeaway from Georges’ response to this question about student risk with building their online presence through blogging is to not worry about it and just be free. He touches on some of the positive aspects of students blogging and I would like to hear more but I am also living some of those positives right now.

 

Palmer, Parker J.(1998). The courage to teach. San Francisco, CA.