Taken to heart

The wild week is flying to its end, I can't wait for the space that the weekend provides--for thought, as well as recreation, that I didn't fit in this week.  And I can't help but take heart Nelson's "You can learn anything (even computers!)" and Emily's points about how "vague impressions" are a fine place to start, and we don't have to be ashamed of it as we try to gather insights and learn what we want to know.  It is not a weakness to show that you don't know something.  It is not a weakness to what to know more.  If we have the nerve (Nelson, not me) we can learn/do/create/know anything.  I want this for my children, and I want it for me!

Tools v learning: what is essential?

Hello all!  I miss you what with these snow/ice/60 degree days that we've been having.  I'm trying to put my finger on things for New Media when all I can think of is "re-newing" learning.  If this goes too far down the education path, feel free to join or chide me. 

Problem: when did "let's google it" become the answer, instead of the tool?
It seems to me that all the assembly, augmentation and linking of material, facts, items, information, stuff, is only as good as the one who actually "googles" and finds out something s/he needs to know.  If you google anything and are satisfied that the first entry (read: wikipedia) and in fact, just skim that for whatever "fact" you needed in order to answer the question...is this less or more dangerous than not knowing the answer in the first place?  It is a false sense of knowledge, it is limited in perspective (and I am actually a fan of wikipedia, not a critic), and it certainly doesn't make you think--because you have the answer, right?  So suppose you don't have any natural curiosity left? You don't look at other links, you don't even use the links that wikipedia authors have provided--you certainly don't notice the alert that occurs on almost every wikipedia page (for example) reminding us of what is missing (absence...hmmm....that is another post entirely).

When did you become curious?  intellectually curious?  we associate this with childhood, and we even said in class (weeks ago) that K-12 as currently designed doesn't seem to subscribe to the importance of intellectual curiosity.  Is it a function of our disciplines?  If so, why am I curious about math and science (and not just their history which I would call part of my discipline)?  And how do we "breed" that sort of curiosity in our students?

Did I say that the Christian Ethics journal wasn't available online, my mistake, the latest issue appeared sometime over this lovely weekend.  Link away!

less or more troubling

First, I just picked up my mail and Baylor's Center for Christian Ethics' Christian Reflection journal was there--topic for this issue--Virtual Lives. I haven't read it yet, but will bring it to pass around next week, it's not online (I checked).

Second: what do you think of this quote that I read today? "The distance to my fellow man is [for me] a very long one." Besides the ache in my heart when I read it, I wonder if it might be true for most/all/some of us. Speculation and I think some research supports the idea that our socially-networked, frenetic society might be compensating for our difficulty "meeting" each other face-to-face, while making it harder to (learn to) do so. Then in class, Jonathan mentioned the loss of the community and how the internet could be seen (in his example, in China) as  morally disruptive to community and development of human feelings/intellect--and the question of what and where should/shouldn't be part available as Sha wrote about cybersecurity today. Whether we are talking about the connections of knowledge or the aggregation of it, is seems that we must always return to the question of human relationships. What Kafka wrote in his fourth Octavo notebook at the beginning of the 20th Century (my quote above, of course) is estrangement, plain and simple, estrangement even from his fellow sufferers.  Will that be less or more pronounced in our age and the next?

Multitask or single task

The problem: email, blackboard, updating, checking in, and how it morphs into too much time without much productivity/output. Strictly limit time spent on email/online?  Or respond a different way to tasks that appear through those media? If it isn't in my list, I don't do it?  but I'm already here?  Why not just get it done?  But is it really necessary?  Here is a quote that haunts me a bit, and my quicky translation: One often suffers from the fact that one has a great deal of work, but no identified mission (to which the work belongs)

"Häufig leidet man daran, dass man zwar viel Arbeit, aber keine Aufgabe hat."

Dr. phil. Hellmut Walters

Orlando moves forward

One of the main goals of this weekend for our family was the planning of the semi-annual family vacation.  Last week we had a Skype conversation where each family group (of 4) gave her/his ideas for vacationing this summer.  We established the approximate dates, we established when who had which conflicts and although it was informal, the list of options looked like this:  Branson, San Diego, Disney, Breckenridge.  Then about Tuesday San Diego seemed to be gaining momentum, there was Disney hesitation both cost and availability. My brother, who missed the last family vacation was driving the discussion, but didn't want  to commit until mid-March when I talked to him Saturday. San Diego and Branson were running neck and neck as long as we didn't have to commit yet. Then in an turn on a dime, a text...skype in 10 minutes.  We logged on and the (refundable) deposit had already been made on the Disney vacation, was that ok?  I could hear that my sister was a little shocked?  I was surprised but glad--less drama than sometimes.  My sister-in-law was sending links like crazy (this is where we will be staying, the layout of the apartment, the location to the parks, the general idea on food/eating in and out...) and my brother was managing the pr campaign to make sure we were all on board.  Countdown on my computer now--167 days until Disney...Orlando takes the lead early and my guess is that no one else has a chance.

Skype conference call, cell phones, texts, links, chat online with Mike--our Disney concierge, online airfare, download of an official countdown to our home computer.  This is what technology offers, access to what is there, the ability to do it "now", a chance to all weigh in on the same line. 

Doing my homework

I like lists, organization, a stack of things that I can rip through--signing, sorting, filing, one more email to put this or that to bed, checking accounts, making next week's list... this homework feels wildly different, like I can't put it on the list, like rows of velcro hooklets are latching to my small and big tasks, daring me to think about them differently, will they hold?

J. Murray's introduction: three things:

• As a German literature person, new media is a continuation of the story of "die Moderne" or Modernism. Especially in the 20th Century, authors and artists write/create against the grain, making news with their experimental language, the multi-level meaning and their insistence that they have overturned if not overthrown and undone all that came before. For everything that is new, there is both resistance and the compulsion to declare it better/innovative.
• The encyclopedic capacity (6) is exponentially experiencing my love of the library. Each book opens up to reveal something that I want to read and know, each journal reveals three or more authors that I want to follow to see where their work is leading us. But I have never been in danger of spending my life in the library, the computer, "as a place, one which we enter and do not wish to leave" (6) doesn't attract me at all. Is it possible to lose too much there? My perceived difference of talking with someone about what I have read/learned is markedly different (and infinitely richer) then when I send a friend a link, and we may not ever talk about it, or if we do the conversation is just "thanks for sending it" but no more.
• Rhizome-not impressed somehow with this term/concept. It seems to me that it is the brain's way of connecting things; that linearity and hierarchy are initially there, but the more we think about things the more the connect in non-linear and non-hierarchical ways. How do we train our brains to create more pathways? By opening perspectives and not allowing ourselves to be persuaded with soundbites and simplicity. These thoughts continue as I read "As we may think", see below.
  

"As we may think"--this was fascinating to read, and as a non-scientist a new way to think about what relationships exist between science, science fiction, scientific prediction and reality. The trails of interest, and the ability to recall them (return to them) with detail is such a gift when I consider research. How many times have you found a fruitful avenue to explore when you couldn't take it because you were focused on a different end for that study? Worse, when has a comment you or someone else made in a presentation sparked a moment of understanding, that you can't quite reconstruct later.

"Presumably man's spirit should be elevated if he can better review is shady past and analyze more completely and objectively his present problems" (47) Case in point, the Financial Crisis Report as understood by NPR's Morning Edition today. How do we focus attention, however, on how to solve the present problems. It is so much easier to just look back, criticize and shake our collective heads. Bush ends with hope (I think) in "As We May Think" and mostly so do I.