Musings on internet communications.

Rather than bore you with an encyclopedic review of internet communications, let me give a few examples of pros & cons.

Pros:
1. Shelley's weekly podcast (here). It's comforting. It grounds & focuses me. It connects me to a sense of participating with real people. Had I not experienced it for myself as a participant in class I wouldn't have known the importance of the human voice in learning.
2. Email: I love it. At it's best it's succinct, focused and I can engage when I'm ready. I much prefer it to phone calls, most of the time. Oh, and there's a record of what was said later.
3. Discussion groups: I prefer them to short essays on class movies and term papers. They let students get inspiration from others. They make a good venue for sharing resources but Wikis might be better.
4. Shared photos: Terrific! Geographers & meteorologists deal with imagery. We think in pictures. Other physical scientists look down their noses at us, but thinking in pictures is how Einstein figured out the universe. Later he added the math to explain it to the physicists. Nevertheless, NASA's physicist's still refuse to put a North arrow on any of their photos of Earth.
5. Annotated maps, such as google's "My Maps". Wow, have you seen "Our Earth as Art?" Google is way out in front on this and people say "they have a nice search engine." I see a revolution in maps in progress. The final outcome may transform how we think and share information & knowledge.

Cons:
1. YouTube movies: I hate 'em. They take up bandwidth and harddrive resources. Plus they're slow and I can speed read. Why watch a 15 minute movie when I can read 6 pages in 4 minutes?
2. Email: Spammers, warrantless wiretapping by Bush & Cheney, and people who don't take time to edit what they write. Dreadful stuff.
3. Online courses in which the teacher only grades and doesn't teach. I'm NOT talking about Shelley. Rather I'm thinking of some math and CIS courses with which I've had experience, but it could apply to just about any class. However, there is something to be learned in what NOT to do from these people.

Jury still out:
1. Blogging: It seems to me we should all write private journals. Am I really so needy that I have to publish all the blather of my mind? I know they're great for getting a person to the top of the dogpile in a Google search. And it does seem more structured than an online discussion group, for those who dislike chaos. I guess I'll hold off judging until the end of class.