I’ve learned a couple of things while trying to find time (aka procrastinating) to watch Gardner Campbell’s “No More Digital Facelifts” video (embedded below) for my ds106 class.

1) Don’t read the other blogs until after the assignment is completed. I felt like I was cheating and reading the cliff notes prior to getting the book.
2) The mashups made me set higher expectations for the actual video! Bummer…
3) I’m amazed at the creativity of people out there.

I found myself playing the mashups (thanks Tom Woodward for your Bag of Gold mashup!) in the background while I was writing this entry. It truly sparked my creative juices. I played back the video a couple of times and was struck by a few things. The majority of those can be read in other blogs so I’m not going to drone on about them (creating a digital presence, becoming a system administrator of your digital life, integrating technology into education, yada yada yada).

What sticks with me is the discussion about the old balloon system being replaced by the radar.

As Gardner puts it – “When radar was new it was found necessary to eliminate the balloon system for city protection that had preceded radar. The balloons got in the way of the electric feedback of the new radar information. The advanced defensive capabilities were stymied by the old defensive capabilities. Such may well prove to be the case with much of our existing school curriculum…”

In my school system, we have balloons and radars working with our students. Our system administrators are saying that we are to use radar. Many of our balloons are happy because their system still works. That’s the tricky part.

I’m not worried about what am I going to do with a bag of gold. I’m worried about what I’m going to do with all of these balloons. I need to get the balloons on my radar.

It’s a radar…what part of that do you not understand?