Tuesday’s class was certainly an experience. I was slightly freaked out by the ninja camera that took and uploaded a photo of me so that – 10 seconds later – the whole class was viewing it on the Media Factory site, me still being in the exact same position in the classroom. WHAT IS THIS SORCERY?!
This course will rely on self-directed learning. That is the central point I got from Adrian’s metaphor of the sea of ideas. Well, after I got over the fact that the entire metaphor just reminded me of Life of Pi. Except without the tiger. I studied the novel last year in VCE English. That story is ingrained into me. ‘Twas very enjoyable. Tad jelly that someone else decided to make the film before I maybe had a chance later on in life… BUT ANYWAY. Time to get on with it!
Networked Media is “a boat”. With a mast. Pushed around by waves, following tidal currents. In a sea with “no shore”. Floating in an “ocean of ideas”.
Yes, so, this metaphor is very deep. Like the ocean. (*SELF HIGH-FIVE*)
Mkay. Time to get serious.
What this metaphor is telling me about the course:
- There is no predetermined destination. The ideas space is endless. Patience is a necessity. As is an open mind.
- We have to seek things ourselves. Learning is self-directed. But only to some extent can we control it.
- There will be a lot of questioning and speculating.
- Stay in the boat. Or drown in ideas.
- We won’t learn actual things. We won’t be handed knowledge. We need to create our own knowledge (like creating ripples with the oar). We are being taught how to think.
This last point is, in my opinion, the most important. We are being taught how to think in this course. Independent thought. How to generate ideas. Make connections. Become actual intelligent human beings, rather than robots. Hooray.