Attention and the Digital Age

Technology, what a Blast!

I'm looking at and drooling over all the new technology out there. It's amazing. The one thing that still is bothering me is this and it's not what you might think.

The kids Seem to embrace it and enjoy it, but my questions is are we utilizing it to teach kids in a manner that makes sense. Many districts race to make use of new technology, but so often they are being advised by people and companies that have profit in mind. OK, I'm not exactly anti-capitalism or anti-business, but if were being driven and advised by forces that need to report a quarterly profit, what's really going on here?

Some of you may remember that there have been issues raised over such low tech items as text books. Who makes the decisions, how are they made and who really benefits from the placement of said text books. Issues have ranged from the content of the books to kickback scenarios and more. Often groups of people for one reason or the other have dictated the content more or less based on beliefs and values. I'm not going to argue that here. The problem is we have no goal, vision or plan at a national level as to what dictates a really worthwhile text. If this is the case regarding low tech items such as a text book, what is going on in the technology arena.

Many if not most schools don't have the staff or the monies to hire qualified technology consultants. Most don't really have good in house planning to deal with it. I will take this moment to say that the more schools with better educated and involved parents are a plus when setting up technology goals. Often times these parents are professionals, some who work in a technology related environment. They can be great resources as to setting a good path towards useful tech programs.

Speaking of technology, on wonders why schools don't form relationships with other schools who have tech programs that work well. It's not like a web cam, a projector and a great group "face to face," meeting isn't easy to arrange these days. With the expertise available on the web, it seems foolish to not take advantage of the people out there who would love to reach out and help if asked. Open source software developers have always embodied the desire to help out any one who is interested in the open source community. Why don't educators reach out and ask/search for good examples of technology programs that are working and embody goals that are real and well thought out. Reinventing the wheel is too much work and foolish to boot, unless of course you are part of a sales group, IT team or someone else with vested interests in keeping your job and feathering your nest.

One other thing. Many of our schools are still teaching subjects that do not take advantage of the technology to make education something students can embrace. We live in a world that s literally being reduced to bytes of information. Attentions spans are being reduced in the general population because the world is presenting it's self in smaller and smaller samples for them. How do we deal with the compression of information when we are used to one hour or one and half hour schedules for a class. Is there a more effective way to present information? If the average adult has an attention span of 20 to 40 minutes, is there a way to utilize that to make information more accessible? Lots of questions and some of the best minds on the planet are engaged in searching for answers.

Technology is still only a tool, a tool that can help us to bring dreams, concepts and successful paradigms to or students and the world around them. It will only work if we decide to work smart and look towards a future with a successful integration between the human interface and the technology that is washing over us in ever faster waves. Search for the answers and partner up with people who have the intentions and goals with our kids in mind. Software vendors, corporations and equipment sales people are not the solution. If you have a stake (and it's profit) in mind for your involvement with technology education, then you may be part of the problem, not the solution. We still have some of the worlds best minds. We need to turn to them for a little input on making technology accessible and keep in mind your doing this for your kids. Don't let people with profit as the agenda sway your common sense. Oh yeah, keep current w/ research on educational technology.
Below are some site that are useful to me:

http://thejournal.com/Home.aspx

http://www.techlearning.com/

http://www.eschoolnews.com/

I like these sites, but there are lots others. Look around, learn something, it's fun!

I want you!

I'm listening to the Beatles. Listening to "I want you," and thinking about it, or maybe feeling it. I forget from time to time how much of the Beatles was about raw emotions, life and love. How many of you have had that kind of a day, or hour or week. "I want you so bad, it's driving me mad.'

Aren't we supposed to grow out of that as we age. does it still happen to you. Are you still in love with some one, desperately. Spouse, friend, ex, lover etc. wheres your desire, what do you desire. Passion and desire for what ever is a movable feast. It's the motivation we use to set our engines revving to accomplish something. With out these fiery smoldering underpinnings we'd be nothing. we'd be shadow people gliding through life with little or no attachment to it.

Ever notice how we adore and idolize those few who push the envelope, who really go for it. The hero's, the explores, the people who take the risks. Were in love w/ poets, thieves, scallywag's, musicians, serial killers and the like. We claim to hate them and yet were fascinated. Any one who lives outside the norm, pushing the envelope, revealing the mysteries of life. Altering conciousness where ever they go.

Kerouac, Manson, Armstrong, Earhart and all the others. pushing, striving for God knows what. scaring the shit out of all of us as we watch with bated breath, wondering why they do it. wishing we could do it too. So, I want you, or some thing. So bad it's driving me mad. Life with out Passion is like breasts with out nipples. Salt with out pepper, cats with out hair and chicken with out the KFC. (Did i say that?) Christ that barista is gorgeous! Where's my crash helmet?

Enlightenment & Ice Cream

Nirvana?
Something about those moments when your able to indulge yourself in a small pleasure that makes it all work for me. Ice cream, vanilla bean to be exact is not my downfall, but the ting that lifts me up for a few glorious moments.

While rushing headlong into that abyss that is the end, the great unknown, I am able at times to stop myself, forcibly, if only for a moment to suspend time. I go to the fridge and gently remove the container of creamy frozen goo I love. It's almost like a rare seldom used ritual I have. It is my reward for a job well done, a week of stress, an outpouring of energy and concern while I madly juggle the lives of others around me. Dancing on the head of a pin with so many invisible angels while calling up lists, scenarios and machinations by the dozens. Mad plans for what we will do, how it will be done and what it might accomplish. It's the ritualized dance of the madman as he tells himself that some how it all matters, while knowing full well that little matters except perhaps love, honor and acceptance of the knowledge that all is illusion, impermanence.

When I pass the point where all is good, I know that nothing matters except the sun on my face, a child's bright smile, the shade of blue in that particular corner of the sky today I am ready. Ready to stop, sit down with a bowl of frozen forgetfulness. Nothing exists, save for the moment, the first breath of cold as the spoon nears my tongue. The flash, then flood of flavor as the first taste washes over my taste buds alerting my brain that something wonderful is in the offing. Cool, carnal, licentious bliss. Nothing exists, I am all tongue, taste buds and having given in to the moment I am awash with joy. I am all simple childish giddiness as I begin to revert to moments gone by when all that mattered was the flavor of that first scoop. My soul for a while belongs only to me, the moment and my Ice Cream...

My own personal scary monsters!

I'm sitting here thinking of the things that scare me. Of all the things in the world I can think of it's not having a "well spent life." I saw a documentary back before people were making films about every possible thing under the sun. In it a film maker,Les Blank was was visiting Kansas University at a showing of his film, A Well Spent Life. The film was about Mance Lipscomb,A Texas Delta blues guitar man. I remember the feeling I came away with after watching the film. Mance Lipscomb the elderly guitarist had spent his life playing the blues. He lived a humble life, not rich, by any standard, probably poor by most. His life was his music, and just being alive. Living and being thankful for it.

I wonder about all the things we put ourselves through and the worth of those things. Striving for so much we think we need, or maybe not. What's important, what's the point.
In the film you met the Mrs. A charming elderly African American woman, like her husband, humble. They seemed so comfortable together. Could I ever be that content, that comfortable with my life. It seems like a good question. I often wonder if my life is that complicated of if my choices have just been choices, not of the heart, or perhaps just not true enough to self. I still don't know.
My scary monster. Waking up some day to realize I've over complicated things and missed all the simple joys that can make life the kind of a journey that when your done, you can say it was a, Well spent life."

Missing out on "Being There."

I must admit, I was emailed this. It meant perhaps more to me because I recently bought my first house. The other night a friend asked me if they could play their viola in the downstairs because of the great acoustics. I stopped while they were there and listened for a few moments. It was beautiful. I was moved. I took the time to listen and was happy for it.

I try not to miss much, it's all so amazing and beautiful... Sunlight after a rainstorm, low hanging clouds speeding on their way in a hot electric blue sky, a child's direct stare followed by a hearty giggle. All of it beautiful beyond belief, It's like standing on the brink of creation and becoming drunk on it. So this was interesting.


Washington, DC Metro Station on a cold January morning in 2007. The man with a violin played six Bach pieces for about 45 minutes. During that time approx. 2 thousand people went through the station, most of them on their way to work. After 3 minutes a middle aged man noticed there was a musician playing. He slowed his pace and stopped for a few seconds and then hurried to meet his schedule
4 minutes later:
the violinist received his first dollar: a woman threw the money in the hat and, without stopping, continued to walk.
6 minutes:
A young man leaned against the wall to listen to him, then looked at his watch and started to walk again.

10 minutes:
A 3-year old boy stopped but his mother tugged him along hurriedly. The kid stopped to look at the violinist again, but the mother pushed hard and the child continued to walk, turning his head all the time. This action was repeated by several other children. Every parent, without exception, forced their children to move on quickly.
45 minutes:
The musician played continuously. Only 6 people stopped and listened for a short while. About 20 gave money but continued to walk at their normal pace. The man collected a total of $32.
1 hour:
He finished playing and silence took over. No one noticed. No one applauded, nor was there any recognition.

No one knew this, but the violinist was Joshua Bell, one of the greatest musicians in the world. He played one of the most intricate pieces ever written, with a violin worth $3.5 million dollars. Two days before Joshua Bell sold out a theater in Boston where the seats averaged $100.

This is a true story. Joshua Bell playing incognito in the metro station was organized by the Washington Post as part of a social experiment about perception, taste and people's priorities. The questions raised: in a common place environment at an inappropriate hour, do we perceive beauty? Do we stop to appreciate it? Do we recognize talent in an unexpected context?

One possible conclusion reached from this experiment could be this: If we do not have a moment to stop and listen to one of the best musicians in the world, playing some of the finest music ever written, with one of the most beautiful instruments ever made.... How many other things are we missing?

You have to be present to win!

The Beatles and the New Power Generation!

(Apologies to Prince!)
New music release: The Spirit of the Times!

I'm really happy that the entire collection of Beatles music has been released. My hopes for this have to do with the spirit of the times in which the music came about. Much of the hope and the spirit of brotherhood that pervaded the times was bound up in the music.

We are living in times full of fear and mistrust. It's confusing to me. I meet so many people in a daily basis in my work and I experience them as friendly, ready and willing to give you the benefit of the doubt. A smile works wonders when meeting, that's all you really need. Last week a man stopped his car, ran up to the car in front and replaced a gas cap about to fall off. Another older lady stopped me as I was putting groceries in the side case of my Beemer and asked if she could take my cart and put it away for me. I'm constantly amazed at the kindness of so many.

Conversely I hear all around me the vitriol of many who are angry and fearful about the things that are happening in their lives and the economy and such. I don't really seem to run into much of that, but it's more that I hear it every where I turn All the media is full of it. I've heard it said that the media spreads fear and anxiety. I'm afraid that must be true. What I can't understand how we can be so taken in by all this. If we take a moment to look around we can see all these people who have all the same kinds of hopes and dreams we have. Were not all that different. I guess some of us are more prone to give in to our failings and the fear and tension around us. The unfortunate part is that there is so much acceptance and beauty around us. How can we be so caught up in all this.

So... I am hoping that more of the spirit, the fun and playfulness that we can approach life with will be a bit more apparent to people. We need it now more then ever.

The game is afoot!

Reading about scientific advances on the arxiv blog and the MIT home page. wow, I'm amazed and excited about advances in quantum computing, bio-genetic medicine and a growing understanding of the strangeness of the universe. If ever anyone were to say that anything is possible, I'd be hard pressed to argue about it.

Religion is another interesting area. More and more were beginning to understand that religion is a structure that has evolved over the age to serve the needs of an evolving human population, complete with it's strengths, weakness's and foibles. Perhaps a vestige of times past when survival was paramount and even then it adapted to changing needs, war times, peace times.

That brings me to our current state of affairs. We have perhaps taken the wrong path and tack in this country by playing follow the leader. Primarily as those in power have used abject fear to control the minds and hearts of people who now have trouble thinking their way out of what used to be considered common sense issues and problems. In times past many used the mixture of emotions, compassion, empathy and intellect to find a blend of ideas and solutions to the problems that plagued them. In particular many indigenous societies. (Incidentally, ask someone who knows where the constitution of this country comes from.) Most indigenous people had worked out long ago how to live in relative peace and harmony.

but I digress. Technology and research may help us to pull our heads out of our collective asses. as, and if we learn more about the truth of our shared, (and it is shared) reality we may begin to understand that we are not only linked to one another, but to the universe and the forces that permeate it.