Our course is on and running, with a speed that has exceeded our expectations. Today, on Thursday, January 19th, we already have 13 functioning blogs on our course Facebook page. You guys are amasing when you do what you like and in the ways you like!

The active presence of the course on the Facebook has completely erased the boundaries between the classroom and the living room, at least for me, since the intention to go and check what is happening on BrandBa.se is too strong! I feel that I also have to keep that pace, if not by posting the exciting videos and pictures then, at least, by some ideas worth sharing with you and, hopefully, some other readers.

My major challenge and dilemma with this course is how to make sense of the technologies that have already changed our ways to communicate, teach, learn, develop relationhips, etc. These technologies, which I’m only starting to learn more about, are extremely powerful and too easy-to-use. By saying that they are TOO easy, I mean that their user-friendliness allows us to do things on-line without questioning them and, probably, even do things we would have refrained from doing off-line (e.g. check on each other’s photos).

Another issue with these technologies is their extreme appeal for action. We are not only engaged in the behaviours that we would have hardly imagined doing off-line but we are also encouraged to act faster and faster. For example, in our course you have to set up your blogs fast to be able to develop them into valuable assets in 8 weeks. Choosing the topic, title, target audience and first content as well as people to work with in a time-span of few hours! The rest of time wil be spent on making good sense of what you have created: personally, in a group and together with your readers.

That sense-making will ideally take place not only at your group meetings on- and off-line but also during our meetings at lectures and seminars. The stuff you are going to read is fragmented, not always nicely framed, repetitive. You will have to package and re-package it on your own and to read it selectively. I’m at your disposal to discuss the ideas we have not mentioned in the class. We can do it here, on the Facebook page and, of course, when we meet.

To finish the today’s reflections:

You can’t think your way into a new way of living; you have to live your way into a new way of thinking.

Sincerely,

Veronika