Tuesday, January 25, 2011

Timing is everything.

Hall passes? Hah!

Asynchronous virtual learning has a distinct advantage over face to face schools. We don't care what time you learn. It is no longer about sitting in a seat at the right location at the right time, and if you want teacher help you do not need a hall pass.

What fun to IM class concepts at 11 pm!
What ease to subscribe to discussion boards and see my class comment in real time.

OK, maybe its nerdy fun...but it is fun and nerds are in the days (Zuckerberg, et al.)

In fact the only fly in the balm of this asynchronous lifestyle of mine has become my own tragic inability to conceptualize the EST->CST->MST->PST time zone conversion.

Many is the hour spent sitting in a gotomeeting alone pondering my fundamental resistance processing this elementary mathematical concept. Some people have taken pity and begun sending me meetings as meeting requests, rather than emails allowing phone-email interfaces to seamlessly process the times. Thank goodness for the wonders of that automated calendar. Others however continue to send IMs, emails, and postings or all other forms of madness and I without fail miss 1 in 3 start times when they are out of my own time

My Solution
This lead me in my ponderings to consider that perhaps the time zone itself has become an anachronism in today's E world. The railways which prompted time zone invention back in 1883 are certainly computerized these days. And in all deference to the solar-sidereal-lunar predecessors who tirelessly scanned the skies for details to tell the time and date, atomic clocks are now considered the timekeepers which synchronize my cell phone, laptop, and television. Perhaps it is time to consider a simplification, and all revert to GMT?

So what do you say? Lets move forward to a time zone free existence and base our times on something bigger.
NOW IS THE TIME FOR STARDATES!









Get sound effects & royalty free music at AudioMicro.

No comments:

Post a Comment