In conversation with Kathy Foley

I BELIEVE STUDENTS students give academic programmes their meaning and merit. Mature students like Kathy Foley provide an essential sanity check to third level programmes I teach.

After talking with Kathy about using blogs as a starting point for discussion and feedback, I realised she wasn't going to type anything online without due consideration. Rather than peck away and publish, Kathy would go away and think. "That's something I can do at home, isn't it?" More better if the home is the quiet zone of productivity. In a natural environment you control, rather than in a computer lab filled with the spastic energy of twentysomethings.

Kathy's reaction to my push for instantism reminded me thst we must be wary of easy publishing methods. As I teach in a Computers in Mass Communications module, computers and software are cultural artefacts and while they can sometimes be inspirations in themselves, we must not permit them to dominate cultural production. I will learn things in conversation with Kathy Foley, including lessons in managing IT as part of the writing process.

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