Following comments

Commenting on blogs and other social sites is importance because it allows dialogue between both opposing and like points of view. A lot is said recently about the impact of social networking on individuals ability to communicate one with another. Often it seems like a lot is being said but often only in snippets of conversation. Comments can offer opportunities for individuals to think through points of view and learn new ideas...unfortunately it can also be an opportunity for people to spout off and be verbally abusive; but that form of communication has been around for centuries and will continue regrettably throughout time.

World of Wiki

The only WIKI I ever used was wikipedia. I like the collaboration but have concern that anyone can post anything as content regardless of its reliability or verfiability and youth (or the not so youthful) take it as the TRUTH which may not be the case. Of course time has proven that to be the case with some information from sources considered reliable. It causes concern that so many public school age students race to wikipedia as their primary source of information. THAT SAId I can see useful purposes to the WIKI and have encouraged nursing faculty to give it a try as I have no students of my own to experiment on…with. I recently planned a camping experience for 20 Young Women aged 12-18 to enjoy the rain, heat and sweat of Iowa in late June (great fun…really), a wiki would have been a very useful way to conduct some of our planning especially food and resources.

Head in the Clouds

While I keep moving in circles to do these things, I think the circles are getting tighter and I am getting there sooner. I am working to become more proficient with google docs and hope the next person in nursing can talk others into using them as well because I totally abhor multiple documents for revisions, invariably I end up with the wrong version or some last minute change that gets forgotten in the final version. I think one common version in some mysterious cyber cloud is an excellent idea and may save me some gray hair.

Everything that is old is new again

"Everything that is old is new again" used to refer primarily to clothes and perhaps music, today if appears to have spread to communication, learning and perhaps even the "wiring" of our thinking. While this all seems so very strange and like the immigrants will never catch up---I would like to remind the natives that this country, that our way of life (in the US), was founded by immigrants "evolving" culture, experience, and language over time. I will concede that the natives have indeed changed significantly from the immigrants that in itself is nothing new---not that very long ago folks walked because they had no alternate transportation and rode horses, camels and mules because the only things with wheels required the power of a living creature to move them. The times have always been changing and each generation wants to believe that there change is so significant, so major, so life altering that the generation before can not comprehend it or "keep up". While that is always true in part, it is equally false, in part. It seems there are always those with one foot in both generations willing to teach. I am anxious to engage in understanding the benefits and nuances of the changing world of technology and the influence it has had and will continue to have on how we, as human beings, relate to one another in all aspects of our lives. My interest in web 2.0 is to learn.

13 Things @ Coe

My son is multi-lingual and for the last several years I have expressed a desire to learn another language so today it appears I embark on that journey. Of course when I told him I would learn a new language I was thinking more traditionally in terms of "Spanish", "French", or "German", however, given the scope of the change occurring in communication methods and language I have decided to bridge my gap across the digital divide and learn to speak, at least somewhat more fluently, "digitaleze" For this reason and many more I picked up the challenge issued on campus and have committed to complete 13 Things @ Coe this summer.

A firm believer in the ability of the individual to achieve the seemingly impossible (my children are all shaking their heads---both that they know this is true of me and that they would find my immigration into the digital world to be a source of great humor and immense fun-poking) and wishing to retain the ability to relate to the grandchildren I may someday (hint, hint) have I am about to embark on a journey to learn another language.