I'm not yet convinced that I need all this information beamed in my direction through RSS. Do people actually sift through and read this stuff? (I must admit I'm one of those people who buys the newspaper and doesn't actually read it). I find the internet really useful for communicating with friends, and I use it to get specific information about particular things that interest me, and for buying books, and stuff, but I can't see yet what potential it has for publishing and sustaining 'information delivery' (as staff at the Bodleian are taught to say), (I can't bear letting go of my work for hard copy publication, for anxieties about quality, let alone the thought of doing it instantly for the whole world to see), and I think it would be so labour intensive trying to channel and quality control information for students, that I'm a bit dispirited and overwhelmed by it all. I can think of maybe a handful of sites that are of the right quality and integrity to make use of, and that's it really. e.g. (and here I've tried to cut and paste web addresses and it just won't do it and its immensely frustrating failing to do such a basic thing and not knowing what I'm doing wrong).
Some people, honestly, are posting and publishing stuff of such unremittingly narcissistic mediocrity and guffness, simply because the technology allows them to do so. How can that be progress? I'm all for freedom and democracy but I wonder whether knowledge is harder earned than that, and am an unrepentent elitist when it comes to respecting people's excellence whether it be musicianship, arts and craft, skilled labour, or academic research.
Sorry for being such a party pooper.
3 comments:
There sure is a lot of guff out there - but, isn't that what students face also? How do we help students - and researchers - trawl through this stuff and make judgements of quality if we abandon ship at first sight of whinge-o-blogs? What do the rest of you think - is there really no case for blogs and rss readers in academia?
I'm sure these 'word verification' things for comments aren't entirely random - the latest one here is 'rimmo' - somebody's having a laugh out there...
I was a Web 2.0-er on the 1st course! I'm interested to see what people think as this course progresses. I remember feeling the same about navigating around things... but all I can say is that as with most things, it gets easier the more you do it! Hope you enjoy the course.
I think I should be getting a guilt complex that other people are thinking about this far more deeply than me but so far I can't manage one
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