Biography
This is slightly related to the reflection that I talked about in Back on Track but it also comes out of thinking from my Social Computing Class. Our readings have talked about the trajectory that is reflected in systems of…
David
David is the father of 8 children. When he's not busy with that full time occupation he works as a technology professional. He enjoys discussing big issues with informed people, cooking, gardening, vexillology (flag design), and tinkering.
Leaving Our Universe(s)
Strauss talks about “the difficulty [for people] of standing outside their own symbolic universes, of totally transcending them.” (Strauss 1993 p. 155) I have to agree that this is a monumental task, but I wonder if it is really necessary…
Kernals of Truth
In “It takes a whole village – or does it?” I see some strong truths expressed that the family is the basic unit of society, but there is also a kernel of truth in the saying “it takes a village.”…
Implications of an Assumption
I tried to connect a thought to an assumption and failed before, but now I have a question that arose whole considering one of Strauss’ assumptions (#15) “[A] joint action cannot be resolved into a common or same type of…
Intuition
I was having a conversation about interface design with Matt Schmidt who quoted Steve Jobs saying that if the interface is not intuitive it is not right. That took me back to my interface design class as a computer science…
Blah, Blah, Blog
I found the same problem as Randy documents in The long pause. I found that I soon lost interest in all the blogging about blogging and how lbogs were a perfect fit for improving learning. I still value blogging, but I do it for myself. I try to say the things on my blog that I want to say, not the things that will get other people blogging with me. I am ready to leave blogs and blogging as a tool that teachers may use rather than as the tool for the future of teaching. In other words – if the blog fits, use it.
Nugget of Truth
It is not often that I agree with Maureen Dowd more than grudgingly, but in her article about female interrogators torturing detainees in Iraq I found myself agreeing with her without reservation. She put the perfect perspective in one sentence:…
Mortality
I have been riding an interesting emotional roller-coaster in the last few days. My grandmother – who has had her share of health problems in the last few years but is really very healthy considering her age – was diagnosed…
Courage of the Iraqis
To all appearances, today was a success in Iraq. As reported in the New York Times, the turnout in the Iraqi elections was solid – even exceeding expectations in some Sunni areas. David Anderson (another dead link from ISOU –…
META
As a longtime fan of recursion (from my computer science days) I love observing the meta-cognition that is so prevalent when studying in this field. We learn about learning, teach about teaching and think about thinking. It was fun to…