Tag Archives: focus

networking, Teacher librarians, technology, Web 2.0

Oops I did it again – I created another blog

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Photo by lutykuh on Flickr

Readers may have noticed that my posts are becoming more scarce. Or you may not – you may have given up and dropped checking this blog. Sure, I’ve been reposting from my other blogs – in particular, currently from Through global lenses. But I’m struggling to write regular, disciplined posts about current educational issues.

You know what it’s like when you juggle so many balls that you end up dropping some. That’s what it feels like for me now. Once this blog was the only online writing I was responsible for. Then it was followed by others, some of which I update regularly, for example, my reading blog Fiction is like a box of chocolates, my global Flickr project blog, and my personal photo blog.

Add to this several school-based projects (including nings and wikis) – all good! – and the blog I’m about to start for Kew High School, and you begin to realise the sad truth about my lack of single focus.

Can this be a good thing? How do you manage multiple voices? How do you manage an RSS feed that’s groaning and threatening to burst at the seams? How often do you tweet? Often enough to attract a response? Do you ever get the chance to read a book?

Life is never boring….

21st century learning, learning, Literature, reading, teaching, technology, Web 2.0

Different kinds of reading – internet and literature

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noteasytostayfocussed

 Photo courtesy of imago2007

I’m aware that my reading behaviour on the internet is different from when I read a book, in particular fiction. In addition, I think that my book reading focus has altered since I’ve discovered hyperlinked online reading.

I’ve included a paragraph from a piece written by Sven Birkerts on Britannica blog, Reading in the open-ended information zone called cyberspace.

Again, I’m not saying good or bad, I’m just saying. When I am online I am perpetually aware of open-endedness, of potentiality, and psychologically I am fragmented. I make my way forward through whatever text is in front of me factoring in not just the indeterminacy of whatever is next on the page, I am also alert, even if subliminally, to the idea of the whole, the adjacency of all information. However determined I am to focus on the task at hand, I am haunted by this idea of the whole. Which is different than what I might experience sitting in a library chair knowing that I’m in the midst of three floors of stacks. The difference has to do with permeability, with the imminence of linkage, and it is decisive.

 Here is the complete article.

I’d like to explore this topic to gain an understanding of something that affects our students and us as teachers.

What do others think about the author’s views? What are your thoughts about the different kinds of reading? Do you think our generation of online students are affected, and is this positive or negative?