Closing up and moving on...

This blog was created to support an assignment for the Digital Culture course, but it became a springboard to much more. Together with my assignment for the Introduction to Digital Environments for Learning course, this has led to my dissertation project (running to March 2013).

So, to close out this blog, I have reviewed the actions set last year to see where I am now:

• I am now a Carbon Conversations facilitator and am in discussion with Sustainable Haddington to facilitate carbon conversation groups in my local area
• Carshare with Gavin at least twice a week - currently working from home when I can instead :)
• Allotment at Thistly Cross in Dunbar now entering year 2
• Make more time for nature and me - all the time!
• Read more about human ecology and sustainable education - a core part of my dissertation
• I caught up with my garden photo diary on Facebook, but now experimenting with blipfoto and flickr to get images out into the wide world...
• The Easter Bush veg garden development is underway - just surveying now for members
• Joined The Schumacher Society and now also subscribed to Resurgence and Earthlines
• Still being crafty and now sharing the photos too :)

To follow my progress, please visit my dissertation blog and/or my website.

Thank you for reading :)

In Bloom

“[T]ransliteracy deliberately refuses to presuppose any kind of offline/online divide; indeed it posits a complete interpellation of one by the other within everyday life”

(Thomas et al., 2007)

Life in the ecotechnic age requires awareness of our “interconnectedness with life and all other beings”. We do our best to act responsibly, but we don’t yet know the implications of those actions for all of our connections (Angus et al., 2001).

In the UK, the Government’s plans for increasingly localised responsibility (DirectGov, 2010) echoes that seen in online environmental activism, individualisation of actions feel more achievable, within a person’s immediate control, rather than wider global concerns (Pickerill, 2003). We are told to “think global, act local”, but should we not find a balance in this as with everything else?

As much as our home gives us a sense of place, Pickerill (2003) suggests that online “cross-movement, cross-cultural” interaction can also lead to a change in an individual’s sense of identity. Environmental issues are equally important for those in developing countries (Dunlap & Mertig, 1995), people with a stronger connection to the traditional skills and knowledge that we in the West are in danger of losing. We have much to learn but more to remember.

While we are overconsuming the Earth’s resources, we are also overconsuming our own. We need to learn “better” not learn “more” – “authentic education... rooted in place and tradition” (Sterling, 2009).