What puts me off most about blogging is the regular updating thing. It's great when you have tons of things on your mind or just need to vent. I've done a lot of blowing my top online, not necessarily on my blog but on online forums I've patronised over the years. Anything that I felt was inaccurate, mispresented or didn't agree with, I had absolutely no qualms in making my difference of opinion quite clear but I guess I now have to accept defeat. There are just so many morons who cannot be talked sense into, I'd rather save my breath and leave them to drown in their ignorance. I've had it with trying to be a catcher in the rye.
Of the last 8 or so years that I've been online, it was only last year that I finally got a fast connnection. Earlier I'd been enthusiastically but laboriously exploring the much hyped world wide web at a top speed of 52 kbps. Laughable as it sounds now, it didn't stop me getting what I wanted. I frequented chatrooms, talked to all kinds of people all over the globe. Satiated my curiousity about people in far away, distant, seemingly glamourous places. Found out that they're just regular folks and some are even unbelievably dumb. Fell madly in love a few times with people I always knew I was never going to ever meet anytime but still stayed up long hours at night connecting with. I made a lot of friends, others, while I wouldn't call them enemies exactly, definitely not people I'd so much as say hello to were I to bump into them tomorrow.
What the little old dial-up connectivity couldn't deliver though was meaningful video streaming. I rarely, if ever, attempted to watch youtube. It just wasn't worth the hassle. And even after I got my broadband connection early last year, I'd got so much into the habit of avoiding watching videos online I often forgot about them. Now though I'm pleasantly surprised with the variety of visual information that's available. Last summer, I'd hunted down a few pieces of Hamlet that I wanted to show my students - from Laurence Olivier to Kenneth Branagh and Mel Gibson to this ingenious little rap piece made by a couple of American high schoolers.
Now there's a youtube/edu category which has so many amazing educational vids you could just sit and watch all day. Like how to roast the perfect chicken, poetry readings (mmm perhaps someday we can get our very own Mona reading her Ernestina), plenty of scholarly lectures from universities all the US (not exactly visual treats but there's only so much entertainment you can provide while giving a lecture). I think I can quite safely recommend this youtube/edu thing to my students. Perhaps one day I can just flick on a video of a Wordsworth's Preface to the Lyrical Ballads class in session and let the kids draw their conclusions from it while I recline in the back bench with an Archie comics :o)
Ain't no love for Hammy! I laughed so much I even forgot the heat! And the mother was such a good sport! Well, to each his own learning style. If you can make use of technology in a good way, nothing like it.
ReplyDeleteI beg to differ on your views about blogging. One thing I like most about blogging is the regular updating. If possible I would like to update everyday but ideas don't pop out with the sun every day.
ambs, my point exactly. We'd all like to update everyday but them ideas have a mind of their own. They don't come tumbling down the page at the touch of a keyboard. Seriously, my target's a weekly update but sometimes I'm too lazy to do even that.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you 100% on the you tube thing. I downloaded a few videos ans show them to the students via LCD Projector. Young and techno minded teachers like you are encouraging. I think its a little embarrassing to make a point that all the major/big colleges dosent have a computer lab with internet accessibility. Students nor the teachers seems to care about this "problem"
ReplyDeleteHehe.. I hardly have time to update my blog too, to add more.. even if I'm to update my blog these days.. all that will roll out will mostly be related to twitter or PHP.. so avoided completely
ReplyDeleteeh .. you really working with 52kbps back in 2004 heh? You still have a better ping time in trivia chatroom then.. I was using 128 kbps!! in that trivia room :P
With about 34.3 posts/year over the last three years, you've a commendable pace to your updates. Any more than that, in my case, would be more telling of my lack of attention to the more immediate to do-s. Hey, I'm also getting a hang of the online resources. Let's trade notes.
ReplyDeleteyour students are sure lucky to have a teacher who actually spends time surfing the net and looking up interesting videos.. that was learning can be a lot more fun..
ReplyDeleteI too used the slow 52kbps connection but was patient with it like i have never been with anything else. all the same, i feel i still don't use the net as much as i should..Got introduced to Youtube and Flickr quite recently...and while blogging does keep me quite occupied, i tend to read a lot more than i manage to write..
Vana, thanks but my tech knowledge is really very limited and I must confess that I don't know how to use a projector. You're so right about the lack of interest in techno as a teaching aid though :((
ReplyDeletemnowluck, at least you remember you still have a blog hehe. Of course I was still doing 52 kbps in 2004...even in 2007! And sorry but I forgot your trivia nick again
Philo, yeah I guess my output hasn't been too bad. And often I find too enthusiastic (or conscientious) updates demand rather more of me than I can muster enough inclination for. Yep, let's swap notes.
ReplyDeleteGauri, thank you. And same here, I read more online than I write but I'm really glad for blogs because I enjoy writing, and writing about myself and airing my views is quite frankly the ultimate ego booster!
wow, ego-booster.. i love it.. it's sweet of you to be so candid.. you r quite right here.. writing also makes me feel good about myself. helps keep thoughts in place, feels better when you vent out what you have been thinking, instead of mulling over and over in the mind.. blogging is like a therapy, a world where you can escape to and where you are the boss of your little territory..ego-booster, no doubt
ReplyDeleteCongtats on the broadband! We also just got one installed 11 pm last night after struggling with a slow dial up for ages.
ReplyDeleteYour candid comments have been very helpful to folks like me who are only half, not full morons (lol). Don't give up the good work, pleeze.
As the chronic teacher, you're again being educative on this post. But i don't watch anything one line, guess i'm too clumsy to handle it. Anyways, let's see.
Yeah Gauri, all that. You can even delete comments you don't like. Now that's empowering alright. On the whole, I find the behavioural pattern of blog owners and guests very much like having guests over at your house. Nothing but the most pleasant chitchat. Even when they come in to contradict you on a point or two, it's all done very genially and in the best of spirits. On impersonal website forums though, nobody cares about niceties much. Blogs are so much more well-mannered places for conducting discussions on even touchy topics.
ReplyDeletemesjay, I got my bb in March last year. I'm so happy for you though. Do check out youtube and flickr. Like Gauri said earlier, I managed to get onto the heavily loaded photography flickr site only after getting a faster connection. I have a Mizoram group there which you can get to by clicking on the On The House link on the right side of this page.
ReplyDeleteAnd you know what I mean by morons. Like just recently, I was trying to educate some folks on a Mizo website forum about language and how it's not sth that remains stagnant but must change constantly in keeping with the times but this one chap kept insisting that the Mizo language must remain as it was first instituted in the Mizo Bible! I can't stand morons like that who don't know a thing about certain issues but refuse to learn from those who are a lot more knowledgeable.
Your post reminded me I remember just the gist of the Hamlet story. It's been a long long time since I read that play, way back when I was a kid and too young to understand the nuances of the story. I should go and find myself an easy to read abridged version.
ReplyDeleteGood idea, diary, you go do that. But if you ever have the time, do read the original for all the nuances that abridged versions can't give you.
ReplyDelete