Week 7 summary
I can not believe that it is Sunday already…or that I have made it through another week. Gracie’s dad has been away traveling and I thought that the idea of juggling work, blog, ethnography, home life and Gracie’s academic calendar or extra curricular activities impossible. However, I made it through this week with only a few hiccups (I went to work with my top inside out!!).
This week I was conscious of my overuse of Twitter particularly during week 6 and tried using a few more platforms through IFTTT such as Youtube and Evernote.
I shared a video which I found fascinating around the importance of visual demonstration when educating viewers about functional anatomy. I also considered how our memory is affected by the distractions and overuse of technology, then extended that thought to our behaviour as social creatures and if its more important to build community online than maintain the communities we have in person. Parents are no longer looking at neighbours for babysitters, they are instead turning to apps. I took an online class via Youtube on Autoethnography as I began to consider this for my assignment. It became apparent through my experience of a MOOC and this article that MOOCs are not just for the learner, we are guinea pigs, as course providers use online education to assess how we learn. The expectation of technology is to enhance the classroom and this video also describes technology as an extension of us as humans. Should we use technology within education just because we have the resources? If so, who creates the course or resources? The technologists or the specialist who understands the nature of the subject? I am conflicted as I feel technology can at times dilute the subject of dance but it can also help in many ways including the health and wellbeing of the teacher and student if it can provide more time and a platform for discussion.
I also looked at the importance of words and how words are not just our most powerful weapon but enables us as to understanding our audience. We need to listen. I uploaded my autoethnography using Adobe Spark which I found very easy to use and made the presentation of my work a little less bland. I finished the week with commenting on other ethnographies and blog posts.
There is also a wonderful post within my lifestream that uses 360 degree video footage to connect the viewer with the performer within the online community of dance performance…..Enjoy! 🙂
One thought on “Week 7 summary”
Very impressed with your juggling this week Linzi! And, excellent work trying out some new feeds, the videos make a particularly good contribution to your lifestream.
I really liked the 360 degree video. In fact, having never actually tried one of these out before, I proceeded to go and look at lots of other 360 degree videos…but I’m back now. I’m sure the distraction was worth it! This seems to be a really interesting way of thinking about video and the ‘physicality’ of the ‘online’ – this kind of technology would really get that notion across in a MOOC. Sitting in a chair does’t really work with these videos, does it? One has to stand up and spin around, at the very least. While I can’t claim to have pirouetted whilst watching your dance video, I was definitely ‘active’! Now, if students were creating such videos for each other, you’d certainly be making an ‘active’ community of sorts, I reckon.