so, according to our most recent “unlecture”, a lot of people have not been enjoying this subject. i don’t know why, i think it’s great. the only thing that i haven’t enjoyed so far was the lecture this week. not only was it going backwards on the notion of having “unlectures”, but it literally felt like adrian was giving us a lecture on our dissatisfaction with the way this subject is structured. all stemming from that question people have been asking: “why should i go to the lectures if they are unnecessary?”. but the lectures are necessary. they are our way of communicating with the subject and the tutors. our way of having our questions answered.  but it’s also a way of learning for us. if we only ever do things that are necessary, we will never get anywhere. to progress in life and in media especially, we need to do the things that are unnecessary in order to excel in whatever it is that we want to do. the point’s of uni is to understand not just yes or no but “why”  but we will never see why if we don’t try (that sounded so corny but still).

the other things that adrian discussed was how the problem people are having with this subject is that they are simply too used to the teaching and learning methods of VCE and most other uni courses (i assume, this is the only uni course i’ve ever done, but i assume stuff like med or engineering is nothing like this). rather than an inherent structure of the course, we obtain structure through practice. we grow our skills and our knowledge by participating and contributing and asking questions. as adrian said, “the scaffolding of VCE is gone” and some people’s strength is in structure and order. it doesn’t mean they are dumb or that the subject is wrong, it just means that this method doesn’t necessarily suit them. but there’s nothing wrong with that, we are all different. if we were all the same, there would be no network. and if there was no network, there would be no subject.

my one criticism is not being able to use laptops during the lectures. i’ve found the stuff that we’ve been told in these three lectures to be the most important stuff that we have been learning so far this year. this is life lesson kind of stuff, not knowledge you’ll use in a one-off scenario kind of stuff. and i like to write down important stuff like that. because i am a better learner when i’m reading than when i’m listening. so if i’m taking down notes, then i’ll be taking in the info. and when i’m trying to write in a little notebook, my notes become illegible. but that’s not a problem with the subject or it’s structure. i’m really enjoying networked media.