May 09 2009
Trying something new
I thought I might try something new on my blog by using it to express general thoughts/relfections on my learning process because now that I am reading more blogs and the educaitonal rationale behind them as an educational tool I see that their role can be infinite and can include a kind of journal-like record of everyday experiences like those I am having in EMT1.
I must say that I have often felt frustrated during this course and I think it is because so much of what I am learning is new in a technological sense and its taking to areas where I do not feel very confident yet. I guess in some ways I am having some disorienting dilemmas as Mezirow would say about my attitudes towards technology and its uses in every day life and now in learning.
When I started EMT1 I was open to the fact that I wanted to to learn about technologies that I really should already know about but I did not think that I it would be so confronting. I see my self as being a fairly resourcesful person when it comes to academic research in terms of my post grad studies but I am not sure what happens when it comes to new technology? My resourcefulness seems to vanish and instead I feel angry and frustrated because I don’t know where to start looking or its almost as if I don’t even start looking and just keep trying the same thing over and over again.
I am having such an experience in trying to work out how a wiki works and how I can create a story board within a wiki. I was nervous about wikis because I had not used them before and then once in there I feel lost and unsure of which way to navigate in there and create what I would like to create. In other contexts I would search for an answer but in this context I freeze and get stuck – I ask my self why is it so different in this context?
My patience goes out the window and and I want the answer now! which is not how it works – I think it takes patience and searching for help and guidance. In terms if learning I think I have some king of phobia perhaps about technology that makes me closed to it and hence the attitude of being perhaps somewhat dismissive of it. This work that I am doing in EMT1 makes me challenge that and hence the disorienting dilemma which if I am open to the learning process could result in transformative learning – but am I truly open to that?
That’s why I am thinking of trying something new and doing some search into how to work with wikis and give it my all so that I can learn from this experience.
