Leader for Exploration

Last night I was driving up into the Blue Ridge mountains of North Carolina.  The roads became very twisty as we got closer to our destination.  There were times I was following another car, and found it very easy to follow the tail lights and brake lights of someone else.  I could anticipate directions, braking needed, and amount of steering input.  But then that car would pull off and I had to be the lead, trying to see where the road would be taking us, not sure about the sharpness or banking on every turn.  Being the explorer with no one in front of me was very stressful, and I had to consciously relax myself so I was not too tense to drive effectively.  And of course the 450 pound black bear running across the road did not help.
This morning, I realized that it was not unlike the Web 2.0 explorations we are doing in this course.  Being a private person, I do not explore social media much, and that exploration make me uncomfortable.  The risks of leaving too much of my footprint on the web, or getting hooked into material that captures my interest and time (that I don't have).  But with someone to follow and guide the exploration, it does make it slightly less stressful.  And it is ironic that as I do research for this course and try to learn more about the relationship between online learning and Web 2.0, on name keeps popping up in published papers.  We are very fortunate to have Vanessa Dennen leading us through this exploration.