Multitasking is Just Wrong

This short, entertaining (two words I hope will combine to make you actually WATCH this) video may make you want to do less. Enjoy and be entertained, and perhaps, educated.

Dangerous Science Education

This article about science education was very interesting so I thought I'd pass it on here. Whatever get them engaged, I say!

Philosophy of Teaching

My philosophy of teaching is undefined, evolving, turning in on itself, and I have limited teaching experiences to draw upon. From these, I believe caring about students is a strength I possess and something that matters for students, a conclusion drawn from course evaluations and talking to students. I believe when students feel that a teacher cares about how they are doing in class, this tends to affect them for the better in terms of engagement.

Everyone at different times takes the role of teacher or student, and it has been said that perhaps teaching makes one the best of students. Teaching and learning are two sides of the same thing - to discover. When one has a passion, sharing that passion through teaching brings it alive for the teacher to live again and again.
I have often found it difficult to refrain from the old lecture mode, expounding on a subject to one's own delight, to the detriment of the listener.

While much criticism is heaped on the "old" methods of teaching as a kind of one-way conduit of information flowing from the sage to the student, who is expected to memorize and repeat the facts and figures, there is of course a place for this kind of teaching. We need to know the facts, formulas, and faces of our world. The exciting learning, though, always takes place somewhere in the conversation of ideas.
In this practice we have to let go of assumptions, experiment, fail and find our way back to knowing again.

We learn by making mistakes, as Edison famously said before inventing the lightbulb, "I have discovered 10,000 ways to do it wrong" or something to that effect.
The best discoveries take place within each student, and within each student's creative capacity. Creativity carries a kind of artistic stigma that it belongs to a gifted few, but creativity is necessary for every endeavor - we wouldn't survive without it.
People learn by doing.

I trust the independent voice

I nearly clicked on Google's video about it's new product, Google+, the facebook killer (we shall see). I almost did it, but then I thought, "Do I trust the Google video about Google?". There are other videos out there, of course, like the one I watched the other day, and this one was very explicit about it independence. With the amount of independent, worthy voices of review and opinion, it seems less plausible to me that I should listen to the corporate source, at least when it comes to marketing messages, which are slanted by design.
Better, I think, to listen to a plethora of opinions from the outside, closer to my own vantage point, than use the precious seconds I have to wallow in adspeak.

Here's some linkage about tuning out of the internet and other nonsense that might be a good idea.

Educators stake in Net Neutrality

Educators at all levels, not to mention their students, have to trust the internet to be a space guided by the democratic principles on which this nation is based. Our schools have come to depend on a level of openness in communication, information and innovation on the web, and limiting access by commercial interests is not in the best interest of educators and citizens alike.

Net neutrality is important as other freedoms are to this nation.

Text Deficit

ALERT! Being looked at like a complete fuddy duddy is not restricted to one generation! People of all ages look with brow furrowing skepticism upon anyone who does not yet text.

Comment Context

If I or you comment on a blog, we reply to that one human's expression, making two in conversation, and the dialogue begins.
There is a tremendous difference in one and two.

We have an understanding in Fb that we talk.
In a blog, you are going out on a limb, and should either give a shout out or be smart.
A YouTube comment is the street, a shout down or out, like one yells at the TV or cheers from the sideline.
Recall Forums? and for the really early adopters, message boards and green type on black monitors.
They are still around, and I wonder if there are more users in those than social nets - is that possible? at what moment did they get passed up? In those, there is an assumption of 'help', and humble banter going back and forth.

(these are wandering thoughts..)

Weather or not on the Internet

Gusts of wind nearly blew over the trees last night

But there's no wind on the internet.

While online, the weather's fine

My pages are quietly under the rumble

A calm escape from the worldly tumble...

...TBC

Ning RIP

The end of Ning as a free resource is pretty discouraging for the future of free, and how it will affects educators. Will the domino effect leave free culture tumbling away in free-fall?

In an attempt to recover my balance, I've tried two more social networking sites today: Grou.ps, and SocialGo. My hopes were tilted upward for SocialGO until five minutes into my exploration revealed that little "Upgrade Plan" buttons emblazoned with the ubiquitous shopping cart icon were laid over all the good features. Ning, we never knew what we had until it was gone.

Trying the Grou.ps avenue will have to wait until tomorrow.

Newly Available Condition: Internet Addiction

It's here, it's official: internet addiction is now a psychiatric problem, at least in Korea. I would like to generalize it to "screen addiction".

dramatech

It's time for a dramatic reading of the help files.. Prepare yourselves.

Zen and the Art of Computing

Each time the machine asks you to wait. To "please wait". Take this golden opportunity to do nothing, breathe, and be.

Praise Technology

The Church of England proclaims "blessed be thy 3G network." During a service in London Monday, The Times reports the Reverend Canon David Parrott blessed all kinds of electronic gadgetry — a modern take on a prayer for laborers that dates to medieval times then: plows and hammers.

Now: smart phones and laptops. The blessing: "May our tongues be gentle, our e-mails be simple and our Web sites be accessible."