An Online
Design Journey of
SELF-DISCOVERY, IMAGINATION AND CREATIVITY
online
design |
World-Making Skills | ||
Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts. Albert Einstein
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We know that the new information technology will bring changes we can't even conceive today, both in the way we think about the world, and interact with others. If present trends continue, most of the negotiations, adaptations, and creative solutions to emerging problems will be dealt with online. Thus, for transformation to occur, people must actively engage in a reality-making process that should question old assumptions while manifesting new visions of what could come true with people's intention, focus and interest. In order to change the world, we have to change ourselves first. Our perceptions must change, get rid of what is not anymore, and learn to welcome the new. However, the world-making skills don't have to do with inventing the new "out of the blue" but with learning to see ourselves and the world anew. Thus, it is necessary to realize the importance of both the new (which nature is change) and the old (which nature is continuity). In our modern culture we tend to focus on change, on the new, on what is always in progress; we usually tend to ignore the old, the tradition, what is already known. However, to bring forth change in a balanced way, we inevitably have to respect continuity. We should be able to identify which aspects of reality should change and why, as well as to identify those aspects of reality that should be conserved alive, because it is part of people's identity. Thus, for transformation to occur all people must actively shape the future, a collective enterprise that goes to the heart of mythmaking. Old myths have collapsed but few new ones have emerged to fill the vacuum. Creativity is key to help us find our way into the 21st. Century. We are at a moment of juncture and transition, and the future will depend on the consensus we might be able to generate both in the "real world" and cyberspace. As Ubiratan D'Ambrosio, the Dean of the Latin America Virtual University has said, each of us can either invent the future with novel and appropriate elements, or insist in the perpetration of what has become obsolete. Story-telling
Story-telling
is the oldest form of teaching and the basic vehicle for the transmission
of culture from one generation to the next. Stories are the currency of
human growth. They engage the whole person by activating emotion, imagination,
intellect and spirit. Telling stories can awaken in us the innate abilities
to learn and heal. Moreover, how we view our life as a story often determines
how life treats us. Stories sustain and shape our emotional attitude,
provide us with life purposes, and energize our everyday acts giving life
meaning and momentum. Dialogue
To engage
in dialogue is to think together, to share visions, to listen deeply,
and to inquiry on what it is important to us. Dialogue is about expanding
our capacity for attention, awareness and learning with and from each
other. It is about exploring the frontiers of what it means to be human,
in relationship to each other and our world. Networking
The Internet
and intranets are creating exciting new ways to work together. The model
of the network is based on the acknowledgement of the importance of thinking,
sharing and collaborating for both an individual and the society in which
he or she lives. |
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© Silvia Austerlic 2001