Wrapping it all up

The blog project has been interesting for me, alternately not terribly difficult (I did blog professionally for nearly two years, so blogging wasn't an entirely new thing for me), but a challenge in making a connection to both the textbooks and culture in general. At times, I have felt a little vexed by the Postman text which is a little strange, since I really enjoyed one of his other books, Amusing Ourselves To Death. Postman's general thesis is strong, in that we need to remember that technology isn't entirely positive or even simply neutral, but on some occasions, he seems stuck on his paradigm unwilling to accept technology's positive ends. That made making a connection from his ideas to, for example, the week four project of sending an email to one friend and a letter to another, somewhat difficult. Postman was certainly a very bright and influential man, but to some extent, I think Technopoly might be wistful for a day that has already past us by - one where technology could be thwarted in its domination of our society.

The Wood and Smith book was vexing in a different way. It might be my own narrow experience with the internet, but it seemed their text was already outdated. Wood and Smith spend quite a bit of time in their text discussion MUDs, but not as much time discussing Twitter, for example. It seems like any textbook discussing the internet that actually gets to print is going to be already outdated, which is sort of unfortunate. I like actually having a book in my hand, but it seems like when my son is in college (or quite a bit sooner), textbooks will all be on a Kindle, updated daily with new content. There were definitely moments in this class when I was stuck in the midst of several paragraphs about an aspect of technology no one is particularly concerned about anymore that I wished the text was more up to date.

The assignments themselves were fine, although I felt a bit corny on occasion sending a letter to someone or doing the interviews. Still, that wasn't too much trouble. The only assignment I would have preferred to not do entirely would have been the initial abstinence assignment. While I understood the point (how can you realize the depth of technology's influence while still in the midst of it?), at this point and time, it seems like our lives are too connected to extricate ourselves without a significant amount of disruption. I had to take a day off from work, which isn't really anyone's problem but my own, but the assignment actually cost me a smallish amount of money, which was unpleasant.

Otherwise, the class was fun and interesting, but I think new texts might be beneficial, or even, to make the cost of taking the class itself somewhat more affordable, to eliminate specific texts entirely. I would think, and this might be unmerited arrogance, that blogs, magazine articles and newspaper articles all available for free online could take the place of the textbooks. I would imagine that would be a difficult process to assemble an adequate replacement for the textbooks, so that's a problem, but I think that would be the best way to improve the class, if feasible.