The trend of moving things online (even things like our Walden text onto Kindle) is growing more popular.  I think it’s important that we view both sides as we move forward with this trend. Moving archives and texts online seems to be great, convenient, (eventually) cheaper, and sensible. You lose some value of holding the actual book, paging through pictures, and having the original fonts, but many of these losses can be compensated with our considerate digital humanists and people striving  to preserve these values.

A topic we haven’t really touched on yet in class is the idea of courses offered completely online. It’s an interesting idea with the spin of Texts of Technologies. We stated that the first means of displaying information was speaking, and then only after that was the written word. Well, with online classes are we also moving/progressing ahead? Some would online classes move us forward, others say backward, is it productive or a waste of time? Efficient and convenient or a hassle? “The popularity of online courses seems to drive the false notion of easiness.” This link to a Minnesota article was retweeted several times in the last week. Not only is it a great article with ideas I hadn’t thought of, but it also comes from a great state (don’t worry, I’m still a Packer fan) with some active digital humanists.

A point I took from this article is that online, or specifically the written way, of teaching is not necessarily always easier or better. We have to weigh out the pros and cons of our actions and decisions before committing to them, especially with our technologies.