Monthly Archives: July 2013

Why do we blog?

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now that i have a couple of posts under my belt (metaphorically, i don’t actually have any belts), i can start to try and decipher what actually is a blog and why do we use it?

one point that i found really interesting is when adrian mentioned in the first “unlecture” that essay writing becomes so commonplace in secondary and tertiary school that no one ever questions why they have to write another essay but will always question why they have to keep another blog. especially because, as adrian said, after university, we will never write another essay. but chances are we will keep a blog of some sort. even the journals we used last semester we didn’t question. i did like the journals because, as i’ve mentioned before, i love print. but having started this blog i am loving it. its just so much easier and simpler and a far more productive way of getting my thoughts and ideas out. with my journal i would think carefully about everything i would write or stick in. but on a blog you can write so much more freely. and of course there’s the option of going back and editing something. there’s really only so much white out can do.

the freedom as well as a huge factor to the success of blogs. we can write about anything. of course, some stuff must and should be about the course and various readings but aside from that we have a free reign to discuss anything. and i can guarantee all of you that there will be a post from me about Pokemon in the future. but just try and compare keeping a blog to writing an essay. even the language is different. no need to worry about grammar or spelling (which is lucky because my spelling is pretty atrocious) or academic references. and in the end, we’ve written so much more than we will in a couple of essays spread throughout a semester. but it doesn’t feel like it, and thats the beauty of it!

but the bigger picture of the blog, as adrian discussed in the reading and the second “unlecture” is that once it’s posted, it’s out there. for good. anyone can read and someone will. the internet is forever. which, in a sense, is kinda scary. but what i really liked is how our content is truly ours. i have written this post and published it and it is mine. its that sense of ownership that makes the blog so important and valuable.

the internet has changed everything. how people go about their lives. how information is communicated. the list could go on for ages. and now we are out there. adrian said in the lecture that within a couple of weeks of having started this blog, we should be able to google ourselves and we would be hit number one. now for me i never thought this would happen. my last name being Midler, whenever i searched my name, the top 50 posts at least would be about Bette Midler and some random woman she knows called lauren. i tried earlier this year and same result. but tonight i hit up the google once again and was very pleasantly surprised to see myself as hits 1-6. granted, none of them were about this blog but just to see myself up there on google is something i had always dreamed of as a little girl who thought it would never be possible because of famous bette midler. the internet is growing and i’m excited to see where it takes us next.

loops, loops and more loops

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this week’s reading discussed Chris Argyris (and some other guy called Shön who was only mentioned half the time but seemed important) theory on different modes of learning.

there were single loops, double loops, modes 1 and 2, something called a “theory in use” and various learning agents. right now my brain is feeling pretty loopy. even after leaving till the next day, printing it out and attacking it with my highlighter, i got about three quarters of the way through this article when my brain just said “NO!”. those were some pretty heavy concepts and theories in there and i just kept thinking to myself “i am soooo single loop learning right now”, and i don’t even know if that’s right!

what i did gather from the article was that single loop learning was simple “error detected – error corrected” by just seeing what is wrong and fixing it. double loop learning (assumedly the better and more in depth way to learn) involved rethinking about the parameters of the problem itself, and changing not just the error but the way we see and do things in the system as a whole. but i’m not sure. it was pretty complex. to be honest, i used dani’s summary of this reading to help me understand it because i respond far better to the familiar vernacular of a fellow peer than that of some fancy academic article. so thank you dani, you were of great help.

in a way i kind of  see these looped learning as how this course has been aiming to get us to learn. single loop learning is that of school or other university courses where you are given information and any errors are easily corrected (generally for you by a teacher) – thats the simple learning. that’s the “know-what”. but then we have double loop learning which is like this unit (and our course in general) which is where we have to do the learning for ourselves, work out what is wrong and why and reshape how we act before we can proceed. thats how you get the “know-how”.

i’m probs way off the mark right now but i feel like i’ve learnt something and that’s all that really matters…right?

Learning – Day vs. Night

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so, i’m sitting here, at my lovely new mac computer (yes, i caved in. i’m a P.C lover at heart but i have to admit, this mac is pretty good. i did it for the editing software. and my old laptop took 30 minutes to start up, by which time i probably didn’t even need it anymore. anyway, back to the post) and it’s just passed into wednesday morning and i just cannot get through this reading.
i don’t know what it is, because generally i work much better at night. my friends think i’m crazy but lets be honest, i would much rather stay up till 2 am (ok, lets be realistic here, 1 at the latest) to do work rather than ever get up early (and yes, when i say early i mean before 9, sometimes 10). i’m a night owl. it must be genetic because my dad is the same (my mum on the other hand, in bed by 9 and up by 7, the horror!).
but it’s true, no matter how desperate the work is, i just can never bring myself to get up early to do it. yes, this does often leave me in a it of a manic rush to get assignments done and was a major problem during high school when i had a parentally enforced bedtime (yes, parentally is now a word) but i just work better at night.
but not right now. i just cant get through these readings (i probably have left it bit late). i think my problem is i still live in a print world. i love paper. i love books. i miss writing notes in a textbook (although i don’t miss trying to decipher my shocking handwriting) and i miss highlighting things. i really miss highlighting things. i used to crack out all ten different highlighter colours for every assignment and just highlight everything because it looked pretty.

and so now my brain just cant deal with a lump of   smart sounding words presented to me on a bright screen which i can’t draw on in a bright yellow texter. this is the internet, i’m used to “had a pie today! tasty” or “OMG!!! game of thrones! OMG!!!” but not stuff i actually need to take in. i guess as far as readings go, i’m gonna have to head back to the dreaded olden days and print these out. speaking of which, i absolutely loved that article adrian posted about print dying – http://theonion.com/articles/print-dead-at-1803,33244/?ref=auto
but i will never give up my books. sitting just underneath my beloved tv boxsets, they are all my babies (bit too creepy?).

well, this stemmed pretty far from my original idea for this blog. i tend to write a lot, not sure if thats a good or bad thing here. i think blogs are meant to be short. i guess my brain thinks more at night. i’ll have to start writing these during the day, while i’m printing out the readings.
i should stop now. i’m gonna stop. now. goodnight.

The “Unlecture”

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well, guess i’d better start somewhere.
yes, i left this until ridiculously late. so late in fact that most stuff from our first unlecture has been pushed out of my brain by the second one that we just had today. But, there is a reason for the delay (even though it is a bit silly) and that is that blogging scares me.
i don’t know why. i live in a world were i post random crap (pardon my language) online all the time about trivial things in my life. so why should blogging scare me? i guess for me it’s just new. and in the unlecture where we were told just a lot about blogging and unorthodox learning and “unlecutres” i guess i just freaked out a little bit, crawled up into my squirtle shell and hid away for a week.
but now i’m here! and its not so scary. granted, it is almost midnight and my desktop background is threatening to change over once the clock strikes 12 (who knows what it’ll be next?!?!), but i’m writing and it doesn’t seem too hard.
so, what was the unlecture?
nothing i was ever prepared for or thought about when i had planned for uni. i guess we get so used to the learning methods in high school – “here is all the info you need to know, now go and memorise”. and lucky for me i have a very good memory. that system worked for me. so getting thrown into this whole new way of learning – “active learning” – is new and exciting. and it’s what we need. as adrian said we need the “know-how” not the “know-what”. i came to the first “unlecture with my laptop open on a blank page, ready to write down all that important info we would be told but left with an empty page but all new ideas. the empty pages are for the “know-what” but anyone can find the “know-what”. that’s what the internet is for. i really liked that idea of the “know-how”, it’s opened a whole new door for me. i guess i was looking at uni the wrong way so thank you networked media. time for a new semester

omg, can’t believe i just wrote a blog post. feeling so proud right now 😀