Game changer – E-Learning Provocateur

As a blogger, I’ve been battling.

Traditionally it has been a fulfilling pastime for me – both personally and vocation intelligent – but it has also been demanding. It’s time consuming, it demands huge doses of vulnerability, and on event the reaction from my fellow “professionals” has been downright unprofessional.

Combine that with some non-public matters and a dwindling readership, I’ve been pondering if it’s truly worth it any additional.

Prior to posting I really don’t know previously this calendar year, an illustration tweeted by Severe Darji confident me to give it a different crack and I felt passionately plenty of about transforming traditional digital schooling into blended discovering ordeals to comply with it up with a possible past hurrah.

Which prompted me to marvel: What do I feel passionate about?

Right after ruminating about the problem for a incredibly lengthy time, I have concluded that my enthusiasm is nature and its conservation.

I analyzed environmental biology at uni and obtained my initial comprehensive-time occupation in drinking water management, just before the trajectory of my profession thrusted me deep into the company realm. Which is not automatically a negative point, it is just various.

Just after additional pondering, I also recognised that I’m fascinated by cryptozoology. Not so much of the Bigfoot assortment – whilst I do discover that entertaining and from time to time informative, specifically when the investigators use slicing-edge know-how but alternatively a lot more alongside the lines of irrespective of whether the Tasmanian Tiger (Thylacinus cynocephalus) still exists on the Apple Isle or in pockets on the mainland, or no matter if huge cats (Panthera spp.) roam the Australian countryside.

Acquiring carried out a reasonable share of it myself, I can tell you that biological surveying is a difficult small business. Common approaches of pinpointing the various species that inhabit a provided space – eg observation, tracking, scat analysis, cage trapping, motion-sensing images – are a bit strike and overlook, to be frank. To get a perception of the magnitude of the endeavor, consider trekking by the Amazon forest… you know jaguars stay there, but you nearly undoubtedly won’t see a single.

In that light-weight, discovering a cryptid is difficult – in any other case they wouldn’t be cryptids. Even when video clip evidence is forthcoming, it is infuriatingly inconclusive.

Which sales opportunities me to a further interest: Environmental DNA. Abbreviated to eDNA, this time period refers to the examination of minute traces of natural and organic issue in samples of soil, h2o and even air to determine the wildlife which is current in the vicinity.

I contemplate eDNA a sport changer, not only for cryptozoology but also for mainstream ecology. A circumstance in issue is the College of Otago’s research for the Loch Ness Monster. When this foray failed to discover the fabled plesiosaur, it did showcase a novel tactic to organic surveying that observed proof of a whopping 3,000 species in the h2o. Not only aquatic animals this kind of as salmon, pike and eel, but also terrestrial animals this sort of as rabbit, badger and vole (presumably simply because of rain washing detritus into the lake from the encompassing catchment).

I’m so enamoured by eDNA that I urge the scientific neighborhood to give it a good go in advance of we “resurrect” the Tasmanian Tiger by means of Jurassic Park-type genetic engineering.

I’d also be delighted to see it utilised in the hunt for large cats down underneath, if not to demonstrate they exist, then to demonstrate that they really don’t.

Having mentioned that, I realise eDNA is no magic bullet. First of all, it is a snapshot: for instance, the University of Otago’s study failed to establish animals these as seals and otters which are recognized to go to the loch. Then of course you have the politics of science to contend with: fuelled by anecdotes this kind of as the one about the leopard scat sampled from a local zoo remaining recognized as “dog” by a wary lab.

Irrespective of its limitations, nevertheless, I contend that eDNA will revolutionise our examine of biodiversity.

Lest I stray way too considerably off topic, I’ll conclude by reaffirming what we presently know about Mastering & Enhancement: we also profit from the progression of technological know-how.

Amid the rise of virtual actuality, artificial intelligence and the metaverse, what do you contemplate to be our activity changer?