Imagineering

Hello everyone, I'm back after almost two weeks of not touching the computer for anything but dumping photos that I took while on holiday to clean up cards - getting back, I had over 100 emails waiting with a good 80% that were needing replies. Some of you know that I was away at Walt Disney World - an amazing place with just about every detail thought through (please add heaters to the bus stops for the odd cold nights and make the people taking and handling Magical Express Arrivals a little easier to spot - Mickey Mits/bright shirts for incoming people). What struck me was that all the details were put to great use in each of the the rides to create a complete experience. None more so than the Tower of Terror. It was so completely an escape from reality that it was difficult to separate the reality from the simulacra. From the ground up, every little detail has been put into place - to the cobwebs and the weathering of the walls. This is done to entertain the "guests" as they wait to take the ride, but unfortunately it seems, that most of the people there didn't seem to care, they were just there for the ride. Myself, I was just awestruck and where I could I tried to take pictures (I've got 1300 from the trip, they will be online shortly as I organize them into some manner that will make sense). I would have waited in line the 30-50 minutes that some of the rides had just to see what they had done - Kali River Rapids and from what I can tell of Expedition Everest (Podcast) things are just getting better all the time. So what does this have to do with IT/ID? Well - only what you want it to... one of the things that I was thinking about this morning as I was getting ready to get back into the flow was what really makes this blog unique. I think it is that I believe that just about everything can be a teachable event and that most applications of technology outside the classroom can have application inside as well. So just about everything that happens has at least one or two elements two it that are based in some thing that has a technological basis that if not used for "awe" value can be instructional. And I also believe that not all technology has to have a chip inside. Balancing this, I also believe that there has to be a balance - that we have to appreciate the world around us and not become so completely consumed by our focus on the improvements that can be made when classrooms are wired. All that an unapologetically, it's my blog, so I write about what interests me. Back to the point I was making about Disney and the Imagineering crew. If even the magic that is spun in Disney World can't keep people from seeing the most shallow means to A and B, how or why should we care or try to make them do the same thing for something that is not even registering on the thrill meter? Well those people, we ignore - the others, those who make believe and feel that they are on an expedition are the ones that I think can be won over by simple details. But not just one or two - a fair number, so that most every element of the situation that is set up for learning is covered. I once ran a course with this amount of detail - or tried at least and the chair at the time told me that I went overboard and that I should keep it as simple as possible. But with any luck, my next course will be with another chair and I'll be allowed all the detail that I want. Technorati Tags: Walt Disney World, Imagineering, Technology Integration, Expedition Everest, Web 2.0, Tower of Terror