The Fishbowl

Welcome letter 9/10/19
Thank you for the welcome, and I hope we have a good semester!

I am curious as to what kind of space this course will create both physically in the classroom and online in Fishbowl. I hope that the society we create is a positive one.

10 chosen phrases:
“It’s getting harder to tell our own creative illusions from reality.”
“Think of virtual reality as a portal into any world that we can create - a simulated reality.”
“Virtual realities allow us to actually become part of the worlds we make.”
“Mistakes are life-threatening, and learning becomes much easier less stressful [with VR].”
“Although the human brain is extremely smart and attentive to details, it’s pretty easy to trick.”
“Realities [in VR] that, once we enter, are better and more enjoyable than the real world.”
“Places that used to be an escape from reality have finally become permanent settlements of sorts.”
“Dreaming is one of the things that makes humans so incredible.”
“This would be a world where we aren’t limited by our physical bodies - some would say they’re creating their own destiny, others would say it’s escaping from reality.
“If we’re able to build these places, and fully immerse ourselves to where we can’t tell that we’re in a simulated reality. We just might find out that we aren’t going back.”

By sharing our thoughts here in Fishbowl, we will be able to reflect on the perspectives of our peers and continuously re-structure our own perspectives. Doing this will create a social learning environment, I believe.

Donald Schon was a philosopher and professor at M.I.T. who wrote “The Reflective Practitioner.” This book covers how reflective practice can aid professionals in learning from their experiences.

Wow 100 letters! I think, after meeting my group members, I'll be able to finally associate a face to the posts that I read in our group page. I currently only conjure the image of professor Dugal when I read his letters, and I don't have any other faces to match to my classmates when I read their posts. Currently I don't see anything in my mind for those others posts, but hopefully that will change soon!

Thank you for explaining what to do in Fishbowl and sharing it with the class; it cleared up a lot of confusion. I think it would create less confusion in future semesters to include this information in your welcome letter!

I can see why simulation would be controversial - it can take people away from real life, and it's ultimately fake. When I think of simulation I first think of VR games, where people can wear VR headsets and be immersed in a game word. While it's not perfect, it's definitely at the stage where it can at least be marketed and sold. I'm not sure if I can compare the Fishbowl to simulation though - it still uses a rather traditional blogging style. Maybe I will see the similarities as we continue further into the semester!

I have mostly been reading only my teammate's posts, but I have also enjoyed perusing through other classmate's posts. Seeing what they do lets me know how others are feeling about the letters, and how they are vocalizing it online in Fishbowl. By continuing to do this, hopefully my reading skills sharpen. Constantly looking up vocabulary will definitely help in that regard.

I can definitely agree with the claim Anthony Giddens makes about our connection with ourselves and others. Especially as technology and smartphones became more popular, the way we interacted with each other transformed. Through the internet, we can interact with both people we know in real life and people we've never met in person. We can view people under microscopes from what they post online, and we can do the same for ourselves. We share everything online, and we can suddenly view ourselves or others differently because of what we see.

I will also be meeting my teammates next Tuesday. I am still slightly confused about it, but the email reply that professor Dugal sent has helped. I can only assume that it will make more sense as I am actually doing the Social Meeting Exercise itself.

I am looking forward to the Social Meeting Exercise. We are creating an assemblage both in Fishbowl as a class, and in teams with our teammates.

Notable phrases from the two linked videos:
"So history doesn't necessarily repeat itself, but it does rhyme."
"I see an even greater force sweeping the planet: connectivity. The global connectivity revolution, in all of its forms - transportation, energy, and communications - has enabled such a quantum leap in the mobility of people, of goods, of resources, of knowledge..."
"Connectivity, not sovereignty, has become the organizing principal of the human species"

It is interesting how Parag Khanna believes that connectivity is actually the most important asset to the world. The more connections we make between megacities, through railways, roads, and other transportation, the more connections - financial and personal - we can make between the people in those connected areas.

I do agree that we are in a state of becoming in our Fishbowls. I am starting to get the hang of how to go about reading and responding to the posts, but I'm not sure if I have developed the ability to close-read them as much as I'd like. I believe that will be something that must be exercised throughout the entire semester.

At the end of the article, author Viet Thanh Nguyen says, "...share in the promise of our general education: to prepare young people for the goals of economic fulfillment and democratic responsibility. One cannot survive without the other.“

I think this relates to our course in the sense that, as mentioned in earlier classes, we are forming a society ourselves, and we are also looking to make money in societies outside of the university.

In regards to Nyugen’s topic of general education, in theory it sounds right that Gen Eds are the core of any university’s mission, and that all students share that base knowledge. However, I believe that a student’s major-related courses can greatly overshadow and sometimes even overwrite the ethical or cultural knowledge learned from Gen Eds. These are courses that tend to be long forgotten by the time a student makes it to graduation - their major-related courses often take the spotlight. Additionally, with the steep cost of higher education, taking so many Gen Eds seem to be a waste of time and money for most students. This is not to say that all Gen Eds are bad - I have a few that are valuable to me on both an intellectual and personal level, but to me, the high amount of Gen Eds seems to be an overdone money-grab by most higher education institutions. Since I’m not a professor or know how the curriculum is created, maybe there is real reason on why it is the way it is. I’d love to hear Professor Dugal’s thoughts on this as someone who works at the University.