In this week’s unlecture, we touched briefly and opened up on this idea of an ecology. So what the bloomin hell is it?  According to definitions, the most appropriate one would be “the study of the interaction of people with their environment”. Is everything therefore an ecology in our world? Are people ecologies? The internet is definately an ecology, a rapidly growing one too. Our interaction with this network is considered a human necessity, especially for us as media students. Finally we have a slap-in-the-face moment backing us up when we tell all those oldies (who still claim that, if they were able to receive diplomas and PhD’s using books and encyclopedias so can Gen Y) we do in fact NEED the internet, and they need to wake up from their tactical snooze and let go of the smoke and haze of the 80’s. Take this subject for example. The internet is needed in order for us to pass the subject. An encyclopedia will do us about as much good as a car would to a person with no license.
The second thing that stood out, was when Brian mentioned that “Uni is a privilege not a right”. This particularly hit home with me. I am the 1st person in my family (extended included) to actually complete high school as well as go to university. My extended family, who all live in Europe, thought of me in such high esteem when hearing this news. According to them (and their entire village), I was on the same scale as Einstein and destined to be awarded countless awards and have Museums named after me. After regrettably explaining that this is not the case, as the amount of difficulty people would have trying to find the “The Boglarka Muesuem” (the spelling on google maps would constantly correct to Bulgaria and then people would get confused as to which country they were in and world war 3 would ensue etc…) would be too large, I came to the realization of how fortunate I am.  I don’t want to turn this into a cliché sob story, but the fact that we, as Australians have the opportunity to go to university is something the majority of the world envies. And rightly so.
Wow…that escalated quickly…but the unlecture saw viewpoints from all three teachers which I thought was a nice change to the structure of the lecture!