Information Overload, originally uploaded by ~ Solstizio ~.

I chose this image to represent the text overload that engulfs our daily lives.
In the first semester of this master’s degree I discovered the writings of Neil Postman and his vision made a deep impression on me. In his book “Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology” (1993), the author asserts that no technology is neutral and that we should be conscious of the changes to society that the introduction of new technology provokes. He also notes that we are presently bombarded by more and more information (texts) and that this excess has not made us any happier since few of our problems are caused by a lack of information.

My name is Dilip Verma, and I am married with two children. My background is mixed both racially and professionally, but presently I reside in Oaxaca, Mexico and work as the Director of the School of Languages at the local University. I am studying in a joint degree program between UBC and the Tec de Monterrey. This is my first course with UBC and it is a pleasure to be able to write in English.

I have little experience with blogging and no experience with virtual social networking, but I am not a Luddite either. I understand that the new technologies of communication are here to say and I look forward to discovering a considered, culturally sensitive approach to their incorporation into my teaching.

My Mashup of Mike’s Mashup of My Mashup, originally uploaded by cambodia4kidsorg.

Hi all, this is Brian, one of the putative instructors…

I like this image for a lot of reasons. The multi-dimensional tensions it illustrates between digital and analog, read-only and read-write formats. The clever, low-tech mixture of media… paper, photography, Second Life. The way it playfully explores an ongoing controversy concerning alternative copyright approaches. The slightly mischievous insertion of Stephen Downes (the first ed tech blogger, so far as I know) makes me smile.

I came across this image while preparing a presentation on mashups. I didn’t end up using the image, but it was too cool to pass up. So I did what I often do when I encounter something I don’t know what to do with — I blogged it. And was delighted the following morning to see that Beth Kanter, a very interesting and accomplished educator and the creator of the image, had commented on my post. She shared some resources having to do with how social media can be employed by people in the non-profit sector, which I have subsequently shared with others.

I’ve since come to think of Beth as part of my personal learning network. And this image and the stories behind it illustrate to me how content, and the reuse of others’ materials, has moved beyond simply managing inert resources. Increasingly, the work we do online becomes the framework for rich and ongoing social learning relationships.