Over a week on, and I’m taking this chance to more formally reflect on last week’s first lecture for Networked Media.  It was definitely not what I was expecting, that’s for sure.  Day one, and lecturer, Adrian Miles, has already fondly dubbed these weekly occurrences for this semester as the “unlecture”.  I’m listening!

Adrian’s spiel was illuminating, to say the least.  “Not sponges”, he said, dismissing the way typical lectures are conducted; students half asleep, eyes glazed over, heads lolled to one side, and mouths slightly ajar as they drool onto their shoulder as though the knowledge and information being distributed to them were via an intravenous drip in their arm.

No.  These lectures are to be different.  More, an open forum discussion, where individuals can speak their thoughts aloud, and more importantly ideas can be “bounced” off one another to learn in this way.  With that, I can metaphorically see us no longer as sponges, but as the little silver balls of a Newton’s Cradle, only less structured, and moving in differing, wild directions.  And instead of momentum slowly coming to a halt, steadily gaining in speed and rapidity, with the little clinking of metal signifying the ticking of our brains.