Dynamic Stall

I wrote sometime ago, dear reader, that I signed up for the Match.com. Well, they had me write up a headline and a big ol’ description of myself and what I’m looking for in a mate. I thought you may find it amusing to read so I put it down below.
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On this post, way back in the day I wrote about how thought-provoking Mike Wesch’s Web 2.0 video was. I appreciated the fact that he created it with the input and assistance his anthropology class. That says a lot about his teaching style. I’ve always worked harder for a teacher that involved me instead of lectured at me. It also made me more interested in the material than if I merely had to sit and listen. A key point to education INMH.

Here’s another video done by Wesch et al. I don’t think the quality is as high, nor the conclusions as strong as the Web 2.0 video but it’s still raises some excellent questions. I don’t agree with the overall sentiment that technology will save education, nor humankind in general. I do think technology can improve life in Western society but I don’t think technology, or at least digital technology, can do much for the rest of the world yet. I’m not an expert in the 2nd or 3rd worlds but it seems to me non-digital technologies that address basic needs are more critical–clean water, health care, agricultural development, housing, etc. Most of the world doesn’t have electricity much less a computer. A comment made late in the video and too briefly to make any significant impression.

What digital techonology CAN do is motivate a student to learn vis a vis the creative teacher–it should be used as a tool to inspire learning not merely to appease the short-term attention spans of today. As I see it, students seem more interested in socializing than learning. Why is that? Perhaps they have too much access to information and their brains just can’t process it all to any depth. I agree that classroom environments aren’t working. They didn’t for me and I’m an old goat. But does the use of social netoworking sites such as Facebook and MySpace as a tool in the educational arsenal work any better? I’d like to see how.

I finished my bachelor’s degree in the online program at WSU so I’m all for moving classrooms to virtual rooms. But I don’t see how decorating educational material with digital bells and whistles will get young students to be any more interested in learning than before. I think it’s more of an excuse by students to not perform well. Even when I was attending my virtual classroom most people I interacted with via chat rooms and the like were more interested in getting the degree so they could get a better job. I think that’s where the missing link lies. The big revolution may be to go back to apprenticeships, to delay college until the late 20s and to make our primary education more rigorous.

In the meantime, it would certainly help if students would cut themselves off the information superhighway for a bit. It would give students an opportunity to concentrate, to focus on what they want and need to learn. Less “white noise” going in means more brain power available to think, to consider, to be inspired. Turn the TV, iPod, cellphone and laptops off for awhile. See what happens.

Thoughts? Comments?

I would spend my time learning how to do this kind of stuff instead of slaving for the big bucks the old fashion way.

Boy, these are the days I wish I lived in Europe so I could get to Italy easier to check out this new exhibit at the the Museo Nazionale Romano Terme di Diocleziano in Rome. Sigh.

Anyone for Rome this fall?!
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…I mean my sheeps!

Check out this little hotty from CuteOverload.

So jealous I missed the party. I look good with blue hair.

I’m not a believer in the resolution per se, I’m more of the make some goals no matter the time of year and stick with them. But I thought it would be fun to make seeing all the films on this list a resolution this year. I saw the American Film Institute’s List of the 100 Greatest Movies of All-Time over at Defective Yeti and thought it would be fun to find out who’s seen what here in Dynamic Stall land.
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