I support the author’s view in that although the structure of information remains largely the same, the mode of presenting information or searching for information has changed dramatically. The exclusivity of information has been freed by the internet and the development of many social software. While the barebones of information remain largely intact, the exponential growth of collaborative knowledge is huge. The internet has revolutionised the way we are looking for and creating new knowledge and information. We need to think out of the usual to meet current challenges. It is a paradox of modern times- we are more connected but yet has trouble getting across to our neighbours to say “hi”. This brings me to the notion of human relationships- social behaviour will change as the explosion of information through instant connectivity has its undesirable side as well.

In teaching and learning, we hope to engage our learners through the many senses as there are different preferred learning styles - visual, audio, kinesthetic, etc. When using video as the main mode of lecturing we actually have created a 1 way interaction without the ability to see the responses of those listening and taking a dipstick on their understanding. It is rather didactic eliminating the possibility of constructing new knowledge or tapping on existing previous knowledge to ensure learning is understood and entrenched. It does not empower the learner to learn to fish but rather is fed the fish. Children of today are digital natives and have the ability to multi-task while learning, the concept of just sitting down listening to 1 speaker (teacher) will invite an immediate “switch off” attitude. We need to be just as entertaining if not more to engage our young.        

As the world is moving from a knowledge based economy to that of a creative economy, teaching and learning has to change to meet the demands of a creative economy - where the solutions to any problem is reliant on many factors like collaboration, sharing, creation, inventiveness, etc. Media is gaining prominence in our lives and it has changed our relationships and experiences such as “You Tube”. The creator’s work can be enhanced or remixed to allow readers to interact with the work. That is taking learning to a different level. Having said that, technology cannot fully replace the teacher because the human touch is still somehow needed in our increasing individualistic and independent world.

As a visual-kinesthetic learner, the best way for me to learn is to discover the differences between blogger and wordpress by setting up a blog in both environment. The table on the left summarises what I have found.


On the whole the experience of using wordpress  can be summed up as user friendly and more flexible than blogger is. I’ve tried to embed videos into wordpress and was only able to provide a link as the storage space is limited. I will further work with wordpress and append new findings as I go along.