Sunday, September 7, 2008

11:50AM, tuesday september second I sat at my desk attempting to get the people-soft server to log me in; far from the apparent confusion ensuing in Stern 304. Somewhere around Noon I was able to actually login to the people-soft and chase down some classes. I found few in political science to even be open. I quickly found two open classes both taught by the same professor a Mr.Dylan Weller .... I quickly moved to ratemyprofessor.com to try and get a feel for what class might be like with Mr. Weller. Home>>United States>>New York>> Hobart and William Smith Colleges>> Dylan Weller.... nothing. It seemed that a Mr. Weller had never taught at Hobart and William Smith Colleges. By the time that I had returned to people soft one more green box class was available Politics and the Internet Teacher: Jodi Dean. I snaped back to rate my professor and found a plethora reviews and ratings... "She is very hard, makes fun of her students, writes about them on her blog..." a real triple threat... I was sold on the class. After finishing the registration I went to lunch, music playing, computer happily humming along... 
I would return to the smell of a burned out electric motor and  silence. I moved over to the computer and tapped the space bar trying to wake the computer from what I thought was sleep. I poked around the digital corps for minuets trying to bring life back to the machine, but silent it remained. I felt as though it was a close friend lying there lifeless... I though of how important my computer was to me. My vehicle of DIGITAL SELF destroyed.... I though of all the good times spent browsing the pages of face book and email. The time spent in class hacking out notes and researching talking points. What would I become with out Mac? Back to handwriting my notes and walking to the library every time I needed my digital fix? 

On the issue of face to face vs. not? I am all about personal interactions... I feel that people communicate much of what their trying to say non-verbally. Hand movement, facial expression, and body language are all very important factors to consider when discounting face to face interactions. People who know me best can tell what I think of something with out me saying a word by some of my tell-tail facial expressions. Certainly we can't forget the great Albert Mehrabian's study which concluded that only 7% of information in a conversation is communicated in the words used, much more he claims lies in the tone of voice (38%) and facial expressions (53% ) ( Mehrabian 1972)... Ok. Ok so maybe this data is dated and has been largely discredited, but I believe that the central idea holds true. Words are just the surface of ones conversation. Take a play or more specifically the script... Two actors can read the same lines and bring about completely different reactions, suggesting that much lies between the lines.. 

1 comment:

J said...

good to see you are up and running, in some form at least. it's good blogging practice to title your posts. it's probably a good thing your brought up that 'blogs about her students' remark. since blogs are a central component of this class, people might want to talk about that.