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April 7, 2007
Ghost Maps, Laptops, and Wikis
Getting a bit of a late start this morning, but here are a few links worth checking out. First, fellow Wordherder Jason interviewed Steven Berlin Johnson (blog) for PopMatters. The interview focuses primarily on Johnson's most recent book, The Ghost Map, but Johnson also discusses books from earlier in his career. Scroll way down for a YouTube clip of Johnson discussing Ghost Map.
Interesting Wired article, The TV Is Dead. Long Live the TV, which tracks the ongoing fragmentation of the television audience. According to the article, the average television viewer now has over 100 television channels. Not that we have time to watch TV now that we're all on YouTube.
Jason's discussion of his class wiki project illustrates some of the unintended consequences of incorporating technology in the classroom. My wiki assignment hasn't worked this semester, and I think that's probably the result of not defining my expectations for the assignment very clearly.
Related: a Wikieducator tutorial on setting up a wiki and David Cole's Washington Post editorial on laptop use in college classrooms. Cole explains why he has chosen to ban laptops from his law classes, arguing that laptops offer too many distractions and often inhibit class discussion as students frantically transcribe notes rather than engaging with ideas. Cole's argument is interesting, although I'm not quite sure that I'm fully convinced that an outright ban is beneficial. In my "Technology in the Classroom" class, we've been considering how to use technologies (podcast lectures, blogs) to make better use of class time, and in that sense, laptops might be a distraction, but in other circumstances, I've benefited from having students do a quick Google search on a topic pertinent to class discussion (in fact some of my best class discussions have taken place in computer classrooms). Curious to know what others think.
Posted by chuck at April 7, 2007 11:51 AM
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