Category Archives: Linking Thinking

Link­ing to what oth­ers are think­ing about learn­ing as a way to explore how we learn online.

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Google and Its Enemies →

In the phys­i­cal world of books, authors and ideas mat­ter the most. But Google’s project to dig­i­tize 32 mil­lion books has dif­fer­ent val­ues. In the Google world­view, con­tent is indi­vid­u­ally val­ue­less. No one page is more impor­tant than the next; the value lies in the page view. And a page view is a page view, regard­less of whether the page in ques­tion has a pic­ture of a cat, a sin­gle link to another site, or the full text of Freako­nom­ics. When all you’re sell­ing is ad space, the value shifts from the con­tent to the viewer. And ulti­mately the con­tent is val­ued at nothing.

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The Philosophy of Wine-Tasting →

What does it mean to be an “expert” in the area of fine wine? The wine world wants its experts; yet those that ascend to such heights demure, apol­o­giz­ing for the hier­ar­chy of author­ity on the grounds that, well, no one can really say that one wine is supe­rior to another. Barry C. Smith’s review of Ques­tions of Taste places wine-centred ques­tions into a larger frame­work of ques­tions about taste and per­cep­tion, sub­jec­tiv­ity and objec­tiv­ity, and the role of knowl­edge and judg­ment in per­cep­tual appraisal. In wine, as in other domains of prac­tice, exper­tise depends on craft as well as knowl­edge; it is socially sorted and exter­nally val­i­dated. Salut.

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The IQ Conundrum →

Is intel­li­gence a sin­gle, gen­eral fac­tor, or is it more plural and frag­mented? Are we actu­ally get­ting smarter, or are we just get­ting bet­ter at tak­ing tests? This month’s Cato Unbound offers up a cog­ni­tive feast of views­points. James Flynn, who opts for the plural, frag­mented view of IQ, argues that the envirnoment makes a lot of dif­fer­ence in terms of effect on our level of cog­ni­tive func­tion­ing. Once we grasp that “the brain is much more like our mus­cles than we had thought, ” we can do more to improve cog­ni­tive per­for­mance by doing more to exer­cise the brain. “If only we who teach could make more of our “sub­jects” fall in love with ideas. Then we would have truly effec­tive interventions.”

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The Secret to Raising Smart Kids →

What is the secret to rais­ing smart kids? Don’t them that they are. Carol S. Dwek reviews 30 years of research that shows empha­siz­ing effort, not intel­li­gence or tal­ent, is the key to devel­op­ing high achiev­ers in school and in life. This sees the world pop­u­lated by two types of learn­ers: those who view intel­li­gence as a fixed trait, and those who think intel­li­gence is mal­leable and can be devel­oped through edu­ca­tion and hard work. If you fall into the lat­ter group, then set­backs stem from a lack of effort, not abil­ity, and can be reme­died by more effort.

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Free Rice →

Build your vocab­u­lary and help end world hunger. At the heart is a sim­ple vocab­u­lary game and spon­sors who adver­tise on the site; rice is dis­trib­uted by the United Nations World Food Pro­gram. Nearly 4 bil­lion grain of rice have been donated since Octo­ber 7, 2007. Just brilliant.

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Cristina Nehring on What’s Wrong With the American Essay →

As a lit­er­ary form, the essay is like a plas­tic cow – a trans­par­ent cow – with organs and bones that do not seem to fit together but in the end lead to a sat­is­fy­ing whole, well, cow. Not really says Cristina Nehring on Whats Wrong With the Amer­i­can Essay: “If we must com­pare the essay to a beast, let us com­pare it rather to a wild­cat. Let us give it back its tooth and nail, its fangs and claws; let us allow it to take risks, to pre­tend it has nine lives. Let us enfran­chise it to dis­turb us. It is not Orleans incar­cer­ated cow we need today, but Rilkes pan­ther break­ing the bars of his cage.”

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Online Social Networking as Participatory Surveillance →

Anders Albrecht­slund looks at the social aspects of sur­veil­lance, and sug­gests it can be seen as empow­er­ing and par­tic­i­pa­tory. An inter­est­ing alter­na­tive to the usual empha­sis on poten­tial dan­gers live pri­vacy inva­sion and fraud.

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The Transformation of Culture →

Ron asks if Anthony is build­ing a new lan­guage: “It is my own feel­ing that the ubiq­uity of com­put­ers and dig­i­tal tech­nolo­gies means that all cul­tural phe­nom­ena are now avail­able for use by Anthony and his gen­er­a­tion and they are pro­duc­ing a new frame­work of com­mu­ni­ca­tions within which writ­ing is only a piece and not the whole.”

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Growing Up With Google: What It Means To Education →

Diana Oblinger on what it means to be edu­cated in the dig­i­tal age: “Learn­ers need skills that go far beyond read­ing, mem­o­ri­sa­tion and com­mu­ni­ca­tion. Edu­ca­tional insti­tu­tions have an oblig­a­tion to help stu­dents cul­ti­vate those skills that learn­ers have the most dif­fi­culty attain­ing on their own…judgement, syn­the­sis, research, prac­tice and negotiation.”

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Tighten Your Belt, Strengthen Your Mind →

The brain has a lim­ited capac­ity for self-regulation, so exert­ing willpower in one area often leads to back­slid­ing in oth­ers. The good news, how­ever, is that prac­tice increases willpower capacity.

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