"Now don't get me wrong. I have really enjoyed my blogging experience. But I can't help but question, in a classroom setting, does blogging unify the class, or separate it? Let me qualify that question. We are in an age where communication is easier than it has ever been. We can follow the news in myriad mediums. We can send and recieve emails rather than wait for days or months to receive snail mail. But it seems to me that technology leads to a downgrade in communication rather than an upgrade. We spend time every week sitting at a computer communicating in writing precisely so we don't have to sit down in person with people who walk around all day on our same campus! We say, "isn't this convenient that I can get all the benefits of talking to Danielle without ever really having to talk to Danielle?" ... It seems that technology is doing more to separate us from the world and from eachother than it is doing to unite us."
I responded to Jared by saying:
"Really good comment, Jared. This debate is hot in educational technology research right now. Some people argue that technology increases collaboration and interaction, some argue it doesn't. I think a key is, does the computer-supported collaboration replace face-to-face interaction? If so, then it might not be a good choice. However, does it add interaction that wouldn't be there otherwise? For example, if the choice was no interaction because we don't have time (or whatever our excuse is), or interaction through the Internet, which is better?
Another example, I'm interacting with teachers from Australia and England right now on a project. They met me through my blog, and we are collaborating by working together on a wiki, discussion board, and through email to accomplish a project. I'd never talk to these people for real, so being able to communicate through the Internet is helpful. But I agree that emailing my wife or close friends here at BYU is less effective than actually talking to them."
I'd like to hear from some of the rest of you about this. People make a similar argument about what technology may or may not be doing to our writing. Some people say it makes us worse writers because we get lazy and use spell checker instead of really learning to spell, and we use weird internet lingo like "R U going 2 go?". Others argue that technology is helping us become better writers, or at least more frequent writers, because EVERYBODY seems to be emailing, instant messenging or blogging these days, whereas they used to not do any writing at all unless for school.
So back to the original point Jared brought up: Is technology helping or hindering?
