A Good Choice

“It says here under your ‘Date Needed” column that you need these on February 7th. I have them scheduled to arrive on February 8th.” He then continued, “But your document is unclear because you did not fill out the “Date Used” column as well. If you had put February 7th in the “Date Used” colum,…

Rule 7 – Do the work

Rule 7 seems both funny and serious: a Zen-like joke, abolishing all the rules that precede and follow it, and a statement that‘sabsolutely true, for makers of art and for anyone engaged in learning. Note that Rule 7 doesn’t say that the only thing to do is work. Rather, the only necessary thing is work.…

Please Stop Honking

Dear fellow resident of my Pittsburgh area neighborhood, I rejoice in the knowledge that you are apparently pleased with the performance of the football team that serves our geographical area. By all means, feel free to celebrate. Have another beer or something. But please take your black-and-gold-mitten-clad hand off your car horn so I can…

Benjamin Franklin Unmasked

Franklin believed men were equal, in a certain way, but he was consistently reluctant to endorse Thomas Jefferson’s notion of human equality, informed by John Locke, that all men are equal in a state of nature, and he rejected the idea that all men are equally loved in the eyes of God. It was manifestly…

2006 version 1.1

As I grow older, new years don’t feel so new any more. Take this year for instance, it is totally packed with teaching and other tasks until the 10th of February. In the first 7 weeks of the semester I will be doing all my teaching this semester and next (until 1st of October). I…

Yoga Deathmatch

I’ve just finished making a video about the similarities between the ancient Hindu art of spiritual discipline and the rather more modern art of online gaming. Watch the higher self rack up high scores getting to the next level of consciousness in the transcendentally physical world of Half-Life 2: Deathmatch! —Jim Munroe —Yoga Deathmatch (No Media…

Bots, Demons & Dolls

The ?word daemon?, Leonard ventures, ?however spelled, uncovers a provocative and useful dualism. An intermediary with another world doesn’t have to be beneficient. Yet neither is it compelled to be nefarious. It can be both, flip-flopping between positive and negative states?depending on context or perception, on the vagaries of polities, or the whims of the…

Media, media everywhere, and no time left to think?

The average American is a ravenous media junkie, consuming up to nine hours a day of television, web time or cellphone minutes, according to new research which raises fresh questions about how technology is revolutionising society. From iPods filling commuters’ ears, the screens scrolling headlines in the elevator at work to proliferating on-the-move tools like…

The 'Bad' Guy: Steven Johnson Thinks Video Games And Violent TV Are Good for the Brain

Okay. It’s true, as Johnson says, that video games can be intensely challenging and absorbing, and that book-loving snobs tend to be oblivious to this fact. It’s true that “The Sopranos” is complicated and subtle as well as violent. And although you yourself don’t watch “24,” your smart colleagues talk endlessly about its intricate plotting.…

Salute to the good people

Yay for the students who… …hand in their assignment a week early and still manage to go above and beyond what is asked of them. …write far more than the required minimum by the time you ask for a rough draft. …progress from a C on the first exam to an A on the third…

Fearless Learners, Fearful Schools

The challenge is to create students who are lifelong learners rather than successful test takers. One of the phrases that Alan consistently uses in his presentations is “fearless learners,” that we have to give our students the tools and the skills to find relevant information and use it well on their own. That we need…