"I love it when a plan comes together!"

This was the famous line of Hannibal from the A-Team (as opposed to Hannibal the cannibal Lector). However, sometimes the plan just doesn't come together. And that, my friends is when you must make the most of the situation. As a member of Team Mountain Dew, I admitted that my time between training sessions was limited with band camp and rehearsals occupying almost every moment. Therefore, I decided to limit my "game-improvement" involvement to the soundtrack development for "The Ultimate Lunch Tray". All seemed to be on track until at the last moment, I found that I could not open the .fla files that my other team members had posted on the wiki. Duh-duh-DUH!

So to make a long story short, I have soundtrack files and my team mates have published some great changes to the game - check them out on the wiki! - But, the plan didn't come together.

Now, every situation presents a learning experience that we as teachers can process and then use to help our students as they experience similar situations. So what have I learned from this situation?

Well, first of all, I must admit that procrastination played a part on my behalf (see the next post down). I have all sorts of reasons for not checking out these files earlier, but as the saying goes "In life you can have reasons or results. Reasons don't count." If I would have tried opening the .fla files a few days ago when they were posted, I would have discovered the problem earlier and had a better chance of solving the problem.

I think that my second pitfall was the fact that I missed my team conference session last week. (For anyone who is counting reasons, my wife got called into work an emergency case at the hospital at the last minute and I was alone watching my 4 year old son and 5 year old daughter). Good reason, but I still missed the session and the opportunity to possible catch my problem early enough to solve it.

So what can I take from this as I work with students this coming school year? I think I can sum it up in the following way: Stuff happens, and the "plan" doesn't always come together. However, by taking an account of your progress on a regular basis, and building in time for the unexpected, success can still be achieved.

Come to think of it, this is a great moment for teaching about the importance of blogging. By keeping a regular blog, we (teachers as well as students) can reflect on where we stand within a given process. Through this reflection, we can see how far we've come, how much work still remains, and maybe, just maybe, we can catch life's little pitfalls before they get out of control. This way, instead of writing a ridiculously guilt filled blog post about their failure to meet their goals, our students can be sitting back with a smile on their faces saying "I love it when a plan comes together!"

The Procrastination Vortex of DOOM!!!

So, for a while now, I have been wanting to write a blog post on procrastination. My reasons were sincere in the beginning. I have felt that I, more often than not, end up finishing projects at work and at home at the last possible minute. To be truthful, I am still in the midst of an internal dilemma regarding whether or not this is true procrastination, or just a result of my jam-packed schedule. Alas, I will put this philosophical discussion off for another time. (Yes, I know....)

The irony is, after wanting to write this post for weeks now, I am just now getting to it. Even more ironic is the fact that as I started researching for the post, I found myself reading theories about procrastination, then getting distracted by them and following link after link to more and more information about procrastination. I was putting off blogging about the topic which I was researching because I was performing the act which I intended to blog about. If your mind has just exploded, I sympathize. I think mine may have as well.

So, as I write this, I am finding myself continuously looking for ways to make the post better, and usually deciding that the options I consider are not really what I want to use. Like for example, some procrastination theorists argue that procrastinators are really perfectionists. Blahhh...!!! what kind of nonsense is that!

I found this really cool procrastination flow chart. By embedding it here, I can put off ending this post at least a little longer.

I guess my current image of procrastination is that of a swirling vortex of doom. Like when you connect the video out from a digital camera to a tv and then point the camera at said tv. You will see on the screen the viewfinder showing the real time picture of the viewfinder showing the real time picture of the viewfinder showing the real time picture of the viewfinder showing the real time picture of the viewfinder showing the real time picture of the viewfinder showing the real time picture of the viewfinder showing the real time picture of the viewfinder showing the real time picture of the viewfinder showing the real time picture of the viewfinder showing the real time picture of the viewfinder.....well, you get the idea. I was getting tired of copying and pasting or else I could have put off the next example a little longer.

I am also reminded of a scene from a warped movie from my childhood. I will refer to the scene as "the last visible dog". It is from the animated film "The Mouse and his Child". Go to the 52:30 mark to see what I'm talking about.

Procrastination is the act of putting things off until the last minute. Often procrastinators will find some other activity to occupy themselves when they could be completing the task at hand. I will leave it up to the reader to determine whether I have successfully written a post on the topic, or if I've just been procrastinating this entire time.

The Digital Divide - How will the new online "meritorcracy" of the 21st century impact socioeconomic class mobility in a capitalistic society?

Wow, that is a huge question! And it really leads us to a tangled web of continuous questions (it ironically takes place on a "web" as well).

While I certainly do not know enough about this topic to speak with authority, I do have a couple comments and questions to pose:

1. I love the fact that thanks to Web 2.0 technologies, we are now more than ever, on an equal playing field when it comes to creating and contributing to the global online culture. And this WILL effect offline culture. In many ways it already does.

2. While most of us have access to this technology, regardless of our socioeconomic background, many in rural, urban, and other impoverished areas have not had the support system to understand and use this resource to their ultimate benefit.

3. As a human race we have come so far in the past 100,000 years (a blink of an eye in the history of our planet). For many years, people were concerned with preservation of the species and themselves rather than "contributing to society". Although it's not always considered, many people in the lower strata of the social structure are still in this mode. Who has time (or motivation) to learn to be an online "creator" when they are working in back breaking labor just to pay the bills, heat the house, and put food on the table? Not to mention that they often have to choose which of these three will be their priority for the current paycheck...

4. The above concerns relate to the United States. What about 3rd world countries who don't have our bountiful resources and opportunities?

I guess when it comes down to it, I wonder (not with any distrust or paranoia, just pure wonder!) where the path will lead. Will the online social meritocracy and capitalistic society float through the future in parallel harmony? Will there be a point where fiercely competitive commerce chokes out the unprivileged individual's access to open source opportunities? Will the online meritocracy find hold in the physical world and transform our socioeconomic (as opposed to just social) hierarchy in ways we don't yet envision? Or will we see an evolution of social and economic factors which is driven by a fusion of the needs, desires, and possibilities of our new and ever changing world?

Here is a Blogpost that I found on a similar topic.