Wednesday, April 1, 2009

Tech Task #3

I was completely unaware that we had to write on one of the blogs from our Google Reader. Nonetheless I found an interesting blog this morning by a Teacher named Heather Ross from Saskatoon. She is an instructional designer at the Saskatchewan Institute of Applied Science and Technology. Heather Ross wrote a really great blog called "Doomed by our love for the Drive Through?". It is about how there is a great loss in the communinty with the amount of time people are in their cars. We can do so much while sitting in our automoblies we dont have to interact with anyone (Tim Hortons and other fast foods, banking, gas etc.) All of these things are impeding our communication with the outside world. Sure, we give a smile here, a wave there and a $20.00 bill here there and everywhere, but like Heather said ( and I can not say it in any better words) the less we interact with the people around us in our communities "the less we care about their well-being and the less they care about ours". We need to start from scratch and let people know that there is some kindness out there and that people are willing to open doors and pick up their fallin change. Or even what Amber when helping the older woman with her bags. If this does not happen, will we all be stuck in our homes and cars and completely lose faith that humanity exists?
I was thinking this could go one step farther and Dean may not like this. But, online classes kind of follow this same pattern. We do not have face-to-face social interactions. A virtual smile simply does not cut it. At least our generation has has been exposed to both ways of the classroom, online and not. What about the generations in years to come? Will all classes be online? Will they have a good vocabulary, will they even know how to prounounce words? Will they know how to shake hands, or will they even have manners in general? Our world is changing so quickly and I do realize that online classes definetly have their ups and I am hoping that the downs that I worry about will not surface.
Please read Heather Ross' blog at: http://www.mctoonish.com/blog/?p=488. Also in this blog she put a cute video that portrays greatly what she was talking about in her blog. Check it out, you can't beat old cartoons, this one gave me a smile.
"The smallest act of kindness is worth more than the grandest intention"
-Oscar Wilde

1 comment:

  1. That is a great message to share - and the cartoon is a funny way to further portray the message. Thanks for sharing!

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