Saturday, November 1, 2008

The Yin and Yang of Technology

Hello and welcome to my blog! This is my first foray into the bloggosphere and I'm hoping to enter into conversations with those of you out there who care to read any of this.

I've decided to join the blogging mania mainly because as a teacher I'd better be practicing what I preach or as the case might be, I'd better be taking some of those risks that I keep insisting my students take. So, here goes... gulp!

My first post is about the yin and yang of technology, the tug and pull, the good luck/bad luck aspects.

I recently attended a conference where I heard digital storytelling guru Jason Ohler speak. http://www.jasonohler.com/ His idea about how storytelling invites emotional connections with text came across loudly and clearly. Because of this chemistry between affect and print, writing well is still important, even, maybe especially, in this age of multiple literacies. We can't rely on technology to do the thinking for us. Snap a few pictures here, steal a few from there, a little bit of finger aerobics on the keyboard et voila, there's the article. Ohler warns of the seduction of the copy/paste function.

It's easy to get lost in the glitz and glam of technology, but what the digital age has to offer us in the end, when the dust settles, is this incredible potential to reflect on our perspectives, to connect with the beyond and to transform our thinking, if we dare to take such a risk.

My key word for the day then is.. "Geronimo!" :0

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