Connections between my learning and my life

This course has allowed me a unique opportunity.  As a Teacher-Librarian I am mired in questions about the future of print and often find myself challenging my colleagues to see beyond what they percieve to be their role today and to honestly look at how they may need to morph that role to meet the the changing space of reading.

As many of my classmates have stated I particularly enjoyed reading the work of Bolter.  His writing style held greater appeal for me as a learner.  I found it to be much less scholastic than that of Ong and this too may indicate a paradigm shift in how people read and gather information.  Like my Net Generation students I am moving most often in a digital world.  I expect to be engaged in the material.  I want to be hyperlinked and hypermediated.  The MET degree that I have almost completed and my Bachelor of Education degree have both been done without ever setting foot in a library.  I did not conduct a catalogue search, wander through the stacks or crack open a dusty tome. 
I, too, am experiencing a remediation of print.

Having an opportunity to question my beliefs about this “unprecedented” change in reading and writing that we are currently experiencing has been the best part of this course for me.  I truly enjoyed the chance to see that while the scale of the change may, indeed, be fantastic in the digital world it is but one of series of major remediations that has occurred as text and technology have evolved.

Additionally, I would like to thank all of my colleagues for their generosity of thoughts, ideas and observation as we have co-created the community weblog together.  I have thoroughly enjoyed reading your work and have learned more from the collective in this case than from the “published” authors. 

On a personal note, for all of you who sent messages to me as I went through this most difficult of terms, a most sincere thank you. 

Cheers,

Louise Thomson