The coma node

I realize that my blog is in a coma. The posts are like microscopic hand movements, maybe indicating life. But I should not pull the plug on it just yet. For all I now there will be a second wave of blogging and then I can say: “I’ve been doing it for years.” I’m looking forward to that.

These days I’m thinking about how similar the world is despite how much it has changed. Biologically we are the same. Many structures are as strong as ever, and after doing observations in a school in Oslo I see that the classrooms are pretty much the same, too. Not that I expected something radically different, but I spend a lot of time reading the words of ePreachers, putting ‘digital’ in front of everything, so it’s easy to hold some stupid expectations.

The point is not that we are in any sort of stand still. And I do really believe that the network society gives us reasons to change many models and maybe the way we think about education. But these discussions all to soon end up being occupied by screamers: The one side saying everything was better 50 years ago, the other saying we have to change it all to fit some made up ‘digital’ future.

And still young people go to school, getting bored in the classrooms, flirting, fighting, trying to figure out who they are, what they should do and what the point of all this is. If you are an outsider, you might find somewhere to participate on the net, getting the space you are not given in other places. That’s a good thing! If you’re an insider, you probably participate on the net too, using facebook or myspace or whatever, extending, or showing of, what you have elsewhere. And many people do not, lonely or highly sociable, use the net at all.

All of us are never the less affected by the ways new media (new communicational technology) changes the spaces around us. For instance through the impact this has on language (new metaphors, SMS-lingo etc) and in the way physical proximity becomes less important in structuring what you hear, read, say and think about. So both what you say and think, and how you do this, is affected by the tools we use and by the fact that we are linked.