Alas, the final Blog entry is here.

I enjoyed this class! It gave me a great many headaches because I had to think. Which is a sad distinction for a college course to have; but it’s true. Not many college courses require independent thought, they just want you to eat some information a professor digested and spit up; then you’re evaluated based on your ability to likewise regurgitate the material. Independent thinkers are successful only inasmuch as they are able to mask rogue ideas as tried-and-true principles. I’d not argue some concepts, like if x=1 and y=2 then x+y=3, in light of that regurgitation can have its merits. But not many professors see the benefit of teaching students to apply principles in a unique and independent way. Even for solid disciplines like Math or Physics have need of revolutions. There could be shakers passing through these courses who are suppressed into thinking college has no need for new ideas. Furthermore, new ideas are valuable only relative to their ability to further establish the old ones.

For that reason I value Dr. Goodnow’s courses (the mere 2 I’ve taken). If I was able I’d have taken more. It’s not brown-nosing. I suck at brown-nosing, just ask my employer who laid me off this past week in favor of keeping another less experienced employee. I’m not bitter; I’m just not good at kiss ass and sometimes that hurts me! It sure can hurt in college and I’ve enjoyed engaging “crazy” authors like Neil Postman, Wood-Smith was alright and more ordinary. But the overall premise was a fresh one for me. I’m tired of living for someone else’s ideas and want some of my own. To find someone who is educated and values others ideas seems a rarity to me. As such I valued the ideas I’ll take away from this course. It isn’t the principle of technology and communication as much as it is the ability to stretch myself out. The ability to say “x+y=6” and have to support it. This is difficult to do, but at the end of the day that is what I’ll remember. That I had to think and I found a little truth from my efforts.

For the criticism I can’t say much. Most of my hard critiques are aimed at the university processes and it wouldn’t be fair to level an assault upon a course operating in the university system. Given the requirements of university and the limitations of an online format I felt the class was very effectual. A chat room assignment would have been interesting. If a timed chat was used as an experience to “blog” about it would have been very fun. I’ve experienced discussion in a classroom setting, but in an online forum it would be interesting to see how the dynamics of communication might change.

I understand why we had a textbook like “wood-smith” but I didn’t enjoy it much. I’m really unsure of how you’d introduce educational concepts to a topic without an academically minded text. I wonder if concepts would be just as effective if provided outside of a textbook, just as a matter of fact on a word document for example. Then that may open more time for assignments or another opinion (perhaps a contrasting one). That would have been interesting to explore, the internet is still new and allows for a lot of contrasting ideas.

All in all I had a great time with this course. My only regret is there are no other options to continue learning like this though the Cascade-Campus in Bend, OR. Thanks Dr. Goodnow!