After one week has passed since the New Web Symposium of Sept. 3rd, I cannot but remember our three speakers and their different backgrounds.
I linked their presentations and wrote a summary of other people’s notes of their talks here: Toda redención es mutua.
Today, I just want to go back to them, and think of one little thing which is common to them all, besides their beliefs in the Web as a changing force for education and other social issues.
All three of them are actually people who made themselves on a path different from the professional path suggested by their studies. Jim Groom (bavatuesdays) is a literature major, plus cinema. Dolors Reig (El Caparazón) and Mario Núñez (DigiZen) are psychologists, plus other specialties and interests.
Jim built himself a knowledge of programming for the WordPress environment which is really way off his literary background. Still, he is a very good programmer! And one who can quote Shakespeare and b-movies! And he went pursuing a career in programming and educational hacking. Not really your typical description of a Literature program’s goals.
Mario is the psychologist who first practiced and later chose the education/research path. Through that, he also developed strong computing skills and now can manage a Web server as easily as a Jung treatise.
Dolors is the woman who hasn’t accepted the lurings of academia and stayed on her own, designing her own path from the outside. Thus, Dolors is the one self-entrepreneur among them, the person who has been relying on blog and Web 2.0 technology to create from nothing her own space. A testimony to this trend, Dolors is so the woman who symbolized at the Symposium the possibilities the New Web offers to people who just want to take their own professional life in their hands. It’s possible, it’s fun: she says!
However, all three share this last entrepreneur thing, since all three did not follow the path suggested by their studies: Mario did not become a practicing psychologist, Jim did not become a literature scholar, exactly like Dolors. Also, all three learned by themselves! No teachers involved, except perhaps people who served as mentors, as inspirations and guide. Only their own passion pushed them through learning! OMG: Informal learning appearing…
These Web 2.0 technologies are people-enabling and life changing, aren’t they.
Antonio; Muchas gracias por el análisis pues deja claro la importancia y el poder del aprendizaje informal. Y ese me parece es que contiene nuestra pasión y el camino con corazón. El otro es uno requerido y necesario para poder tener el tiempo y los recursos para la jornada que nos completa.