Comments on: An Analogy

By: BSL

BSL — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 02:16:52 +0000

I am back for more highway analyzing… this is very interesting. I agree in many respects w/ KR… the librarian as the Tour Guide AND the Gas Station Attendant does stretch one a bit too thin. Often times, there is so much attending to the Full Service at the Gas Station that the Tourism Industry suffers a bit. However, I do feel that these 2 seemingly random jobs go hand in hand… in some way… but I can’t figure out how to sacrifice one for the other, or how to make both jobs get equal time/effort. Perhaps if the Tour Guide had an Assistant Tour Guide, the Gas Station Attendant piece could fall into place? There’s no way that the Tour Guide can be all of the things in your analogy without some help at the Tourism Shop. I look forward to pondering these thoughts more in the future, as the highway is looking wide and long ahead!

By: LF

LF — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 18:42:58 +0000

This is the first time I have commented in a blog. Now I see that I should have just entered my initials…

By: Laura Flocks

Laura Flocks — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 18:37:49 +0000

I thought the analogy was very clever and certainly gives a clear picture of “the real world of technology.” The librarian not only serves as the “travel agent/tour guide” but as a customer service representative. A live person to listen to the needs of each customer and find a realistic way to honor the customer’s questions, concerns and expectations.

By: Barbara Marchand

Barbara Marchand — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 17:08:56 +0000

Great analogy! Technology is a wonderful tool to use to teach students and teachers to think outside the box. It involves more than just understanding the basics or surfing 2.0 websites for both teachers and students and the district provides training. I like that the Librarian is a tour guide and a traffic cop providing training and guidance to unknown and unexplored places for teachers and students. It seems we are the mechanic for the car as well and this can often divert our time from the driver. I agree with KR when she says “Do we take care of the car or the driver?”

By: KR

KR — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 15:44:11 +0000

Great analogy! Using technology to teach kids to think for themselves in creative & constructive ways is a very complicated task. It involves more than the nuts & bolts of “just” driving or surfing 2.0 avenues. The drivers are the important ones in this scenario .. drivers being both teachers & students. Who will train & guide them is a good question. Librarians serve as tour guides, but more than that they supply drivers with a dream of places they can go which are unexplored & perhaps unknown to them as yet in their former experiences as teachers utilizing technology. Aren’t Librarians also the gentle parent urging the novice driver to take some risks & get behind the wheel? Do we take care of the car or the driver? I feel these are two vastly different realms not easily undertaken by the same person with satisfactory results.

By: LKP

LKP — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 15:39:22 +0000

I agree with BSL. The Driver’s Ed. would teach the basics of navigation for the car and the highways, but the travel agent should also know this, they also need to know about construction and possible road blocks and or obstacles that would prevent the driver from successfully navigating the planned route.
I really like your analogy, it simplifies the ideas, concepts, and potential of the Web 2.0 “highway”, it is also a way to help those with the “79 chevy understand that the roads they are taking might require a newer car, or upgrades to their old familiar favorite vehicle. I also agree that we need to address the drivers who aren’t comfortable with the new, fast, “Porche” that we offer and perhaps have a plan for easing those drivers into the newer faster vehicle so that they will eventually feel comfortable upgrading from their old “classic” car to a newer more efficent model.

By: BSL

BSL — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 15:15:23 +0000

Fascinating analogy, and so true. The Driver’s Education Instructors are perhaps the people who provide technology training OUTSIDE the realm of what the Travel Agent does. Say, the people who provide training for ActivBoards, EasyTech, Odyssey, and the other technology programs that we use on a daily basis and are trying to integrate into the fiber of our daily educational life. But the Travel Agent also knows all about these, too. The Travel Agent wears many, many hats.

My biggest wonder in this analogy is WHAT to DO with all of the drivers on the highway. We have many drivers that clip along at 100mph, which is great. They speed through the highways, are only too happy when a new freeway is built, will pay toll for a really good highway, and are always wanting to drive the newest vehicles to get them to their destination. We also have those lane-huggers who meander along at 20 mph, stalling now and then, and flat breaking down sometimes. They don’t want to drive on any new roads, they love their old ‘79 Chevy, and they think that their 8-track radio is still the best thing since sliced bread. They have no desire to move forward, yet here we are, pushing them. So, the highways need to be easy enough to navigate for both types of drivers. If we are too complex, with too many quick exits, with not enough gas stations and gas station attendants, and no maps available, we’ll lose the 2nd group on the 610 loop, and they’ll never get off. They’ll just keep going around and around, not really ever getting anywhere. Just my .02 cents.