This past week I have basically “gone fishing.”  This is a term many people use to describe their state of mind when circumstances are seemingly out of order a bit and they are fumbling about for a course of action or train of thought. This past week, I have spent quite a bit of time fishing: reading postings from my classmates, and offering some of my own, all in an attempt to narrow down what and how my final assignment will look like.

I suppose to be more specific, I want to go back and discuss themes we covered in Block 1.  These themes of digital culture I found quite intriguing especially now as there is more and more focus on the integration of technology into the daily lives of people.  As I was discussing this with friends at lunch, the tentacles of technology (good or bad) are now reaching beyond the laboratory or “drawing room” and are now on display as we watch TV, listen to our iTunes, even as we talk about medical issues with our physician.  I read an article I posted about on Twitter that humans are moving into a new form of slavery as we allow technology to influence and even control almost everything we do.

I also find so interesting the concept of human-cyborg-robot integration and the benefits/ramifications of that.  Looking over my postings over the course, I reviewed Frankenstein, I, Robot and other “fictional” characters that would seem now to be not so fictional.  What really grabbed my interest however was not so much the technology involved but the subjectivity of the posibility of when these machines achieve self-awareness, or sentience.  What does that mean for humankind?  Will humans as we know them to be now eventually cease to exist?  How far has technology come that machines can not only be made more human, but can be made to BE human?

Of course, as always, I shift around and focus on what this may mean for education and the pedgogies we use in the classroom.  I am not sure it should be a difficult question but I am finding it to be just that.  How will we teach in the future?  How will we LEARN in the future?  Back in the days of the original Buck Rogers and The Twilight Zone these questions were basic entertainment.  Now, I believe this are very real and legitimate issues that are standing right on front of us, right now, today.  I would love to take, or even lead, a course dealing with just this issue.  I regret we only had a couple of weeks to bat this about.

And of course, what medium will I use to pinpoint my fianl assignment and make it coherent and not to out of the box?  I used Lino for my Netography and that turned out fairly well, I think.  I am leaning to that again.  I will of course ook at other platforms to see how creative I can be yet not over-extend my presentation so it seems too busy or unorganized.  In short, I want my final assignment to reflect the fishing trip I went on and came back from, and not reveal the fact I may still be gone.

#mscedc