Okay, so it has been what, 9 months since I last posted on this blog? Perhaps it’s time to return.

Here’s a topic that came across my mind today: Web-based incomes, global opportunities, & changing educational expectations. Some of you know that I left librarianship to be an expat in Buenos Aires.

What I’m really curious about are teenagers with Web-based incomes and global opportunities. If you’re 17 and making $1k a month from some type of online income (blogging revenue, affiliate marketing, SEO work, etc), then you can afford to move to many parts of the world, particularly Latin America or southeast Asia and live very comfortably. Presumably, you would continue investing your time and energy into more entrepreneurial Web activities in order to diversify your revenue streams. In this scenario, for these kids, what is the role of college?

Sure there’s that wonderful idea of being a learned person (and I fully support that) but, seriously, any of us who have worked in higher education knows sadly that most students are in college to prepare them for the workplace, to earn a living, that’s their motivation.

But if you’re a teenager with already a good income and bright prospect for more, all without that college degree, then what’s your incentive to spend four or more years at a university?

If you’re a parent, what would you say to your teenager who just informed you that he’s skipping college, taking his Web-based income and moving to Buenos Aires or Thailand?

In The End of Cyberspace Alex Soojung-Kim Pang raises questions about criticisms of computerized pedagogy: “many of these criticisms rest on an assumption that dealing with computers automatically divorces you from the real world; that the seductive universe of zeroes and ones pulls your attention away from the messy world of atoms and people; and that the character of students’ interactions with computers are very different from those with paper, ink, compass, or modeling clay.”

In my previous post I mentioned my time away from massive doses of technology this year. During that time I did sense that my own thinking was deeper and clearer than when I’m spending hours & hours a day online.

I suspect that it’s because I was more focused on thoughts and ideas rather than absorbing new information or learning the mechanics of a technological tool. I also was only focused on only one or two topics rather than the onslaught of ideas that come to me online. Indeed, now is such an example. I should be working on the draft of my novel rather than addressing this topic, but here I am.

I still find that my best, most creative writing is done with pen and paper. The longer process forces me to think about each paragraph, each sentence, each word. When writing with a word processor I really have to force myself to slow down. It’s too easy too ramble. Obviously, my blogs are always written not by pen otherwise my postings would be much more concise. Also, with word processors it’s too distracting knowing that Firefox is so nearby.

I think that indepth learning can take place with technology and it’s certainly an almost necessary way to engage today’s students. Yet, being away from technology forces us to slow down. I’m not sure exactly what but there does seem to be something positive about being offline when it comes to learning and thinking. (Can’t believe I’m saying this since I, of all people, am no critic of teaching & learning with technology). Or, perhaps, we just haven’t yet developed critical forms of introspective intellectual engagement in the digital environment. (Not sure what that last sentence means, if anything; I need to go offline with pen and paper to think about that more fully).

In the last four months I’ve spent less time online than I have in the past fifteen years. Yet, these months away from the net have been the most intellectually stimulating period of my life since college.

Part of the enjoyment of this period is becuase I’ve been spending more time thinking and writing, not reading many books, many blogs, or blogging much myself. I will be spending more time online now but I’m going to approach it differently, I think.

I have over 250 feeds in my bloglines, though I only really look at a handful regularly. The others are just there to remind me that someday I might be interested in looking at those topics closer.

I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s okay not attempting to keep track with everything that is happening on the wide range of topics that interest me. It’s more important, for me at least, to think about what I am reading, its impact on the areas that interest me - libraries, teaching, learning, research.

When blogging does one need to read a lot of blogs? Does reading a lot of blogs and commenting in short, quick bursts make one a better blogger, more of a participant in the dialogue of bloggers? Some blogs exist to keep others informed about a topic, other blogs exist as a tool for expressing detailed thoughts on a subject. Blogs don’t need to be useful to anyone other than the writer.

Lately, because I’m researching a specific topic I find myself looking at more blogs that I find via search engines than the ones in my bloglines . A long entry that someone wrote a year ago can be more interesting than the current, short take on a hot topic.

The other day I came across a quote by Borges: “It is not the reading that matters, but the rereading.”

Perhaps what matters is not the blogging, reading the blogs, keeping up-to-date with everything, but simply reflecting about what we do read. And writing - whether it’s on paper or a blog - is a way of organizing our thoughts. Of course, this is nothing new, most educators know that it’s the thinking that really matters.