Mirror, Mirror, on the wall

Pete Reilly posted a response in his blog to a invitation to a “meme” or passion quilt.  I’m not really sure what this is, but it seems to be a collection of ideas to create some sort of “super thought” brainstorm. Anyhow, thats not really important, but what was interesting was Pete’s contribution.   He said that what kids need to learn is how to reflect.  I think this is fantastic.  Not only does reflection help critical and a higher level of thinking, but he focused on more of an internal reflection.   I think this is a huge step in learning.  Not in learning about what the text books have to offer us, but rather, as a valuable life skill.  With the ability to reflect we may the degradation of a society where morals are somewhat lacking.  We may see people getting into careers that they are passionate about.  Reflection ultimately leads to better decision making.    The trick is how does one teach this beautiful skill?  Pete may be on to something: “What if by consciously building the human sides of our classrooms, deliberately creating trust with out students, focusing on them as unique individuals, helping them know themselves a little better; we are creating an academic environment where we can be even more rigorous? As adults, we do our best and most meaningful work (whether ‘one on one’ or in teams) when we have a trusting relationship and bond with those we work with. The same dynamic applies to our classrooms.” 

The ‘advancing’ higher education

As I was doing my weekly reading, I checked up on Will Richardson’s blog and the title The Distributed University caught my eye, being a student at a university.He echoes the words of Jeff Jarvis who says that the modern university as we know it is in the process of being phased out.Richardson talks about what I call a “grocery store” approach to education.  A student should be able to pick not the university he or she wants to attend, but rather the professors, classes, and the like from any university.The obvious initial negative reaction to this Will Richardson addresses, “I know, I know. There is more to college than classes. I’m a poster child for that. And accreditation is a huge issue.”But I think what both Will Richardson and Jeff Jarvis  are overlooking is how this would ultimately lead to the destruction of the university as an institution of higher thinking.  A place where professors and their students conduct break-through research.  If a students was able to grocery shop for the school they wanted to attend, what good would that do the United States as a forerunner in higher thinking.I think what Will Richardson and Jeff Jarvis speak of is an elitist approach to education.  The best students will be able to pick out only the best teachers.  There will be no room for personal advancement.  I personally don’t see this as a progression for the system of universities.

Technological Simplicity

For class, I needed to create a podcast.  I decided to include the text for those without speakers and who are hard of hearing.  I couldn’t actually get it as a true m4a file, so I just made it into a quicktime and uploaded it to youtube, so there is no visual.   Ewan McIntosh adressed the economic debate issue of whether technology actually simplifies our lives or not in his blog.   McIntosh neither supported nor rejected this claim, but  instead presented both sides in this post.   I feel that  it is easy to see how technology has crowded our lives with confusion.  Between rebooting, reformatting, call waiting, spam, and online hackers it is hard to sometimes see how we are better off than “the good old days.” The question I have is “Does technology make our lives more complicated, or do we?”   I think it is the latter.  I believe that technology has absolutely made our lives more simple.  It has succeeded almost perfectly.   I stress the word almost.  Telephones saved us loads of time from writing personal letters to anybody we wanted to be in contact with.  E-mail made this even easier and quicker.  Computers help us process information with the beat of an eye, store information and consolidate space by eliminating the need for endless filing cabinets.  The list goes on.   So where did this all get screwed up?   I believe it was when we had all the spare time and eased stress when this was spoiled.  We had free time and we clogged it up with more technological advances.  Instead of using the time that we were given by the simplistic technology we just added more to our plate.   If we want technology to be used as it was intended, we must learn not to serve our machines, but for them to serve us.  This is a common problem among most things today.  Lets be prudent about how we use our ‘conveniences.’