bearded thoughts

[ryaningersoll]

Online, the past remain fresh. The pixels do not fade with time as our memories do...Since we live in a world where we tend to choose "archive" instead of "delete," everything is saved, and memories have a way of forcing themselves to the surface in the most unexpected ways. If memories are painful, that can be paralyzing, like a digital PTSD, with flashbacks to events that you can't control. Depending on how much you turn to Facebook for the chronicling and journaling of your life, this might unearth some powerful moments you hadn't expected, or wouldn't have necessarily wanted, its algorithms to serve up to you.

Kashmir Hill quoted in Ctrl+Z: the right to be forgotten by Meg Leta Jones, p. 16

[ryaningersoll]

Our global crises, the magnitude of the stakes for which we are playing, could signal the end of civilization as we've known it. Or they might be precisely the impetus human beings perversely need to do the real work at hand: to directly and wisely address the human condition and begin to grow it up.

Krista Tippett in Becoming Wise, p. 14

[ryaningersoll]

The digital world, though a new Wild West in many ways, is on some basic level simply another screen on which we project the excesses and possibilities of life in flesh and blood.

Krista Tippett in Becoming Wise, p. 4

[ryaningersoll]

However, some of Jacobs’s concerns about the current unhappy union with our attention-demanding devices seem to emerge from a specific social location. While these concerns may ring true for a large segment of higher-income, well-educated adults, who do in fact own smartphones in greater numbers than the rest of the US population, they may fall short of describing the experiences of many other users.

 Ticona, J. (2015, April 13). 79 Theses on Technology: The Hand That Holds the Smartphone. Retrieved from http://iasc-culture.org/THR/channels/Infernal_Machine/2015/04/79-theses-on-technology-the-hand-that-holds-the-smartphone/  

[ryaningersoll]

In general, we need a balanced approach that empowers youth to seize the positive opportunities of digital media for creativity and knowledge building while instilling ethical sensitivity. Youth need better education not just about how to create, attribute, and draw on others work but also about why it is important to do so.

James, C. (2014). Disconnected : youth, new media, and the ethics gap. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press. p. 71

[ryaningersoll]

There may be many instances in which digital affordances—what we can do with the technologies—are seized without due consideration of whether we should do certain things. However, to be clear, digital media do not cause youth to believe that privacy is forsaken and to commit such acts. Psychological, social, and culture forces are far more powerful factors in such failures of empathy and ethics.

James, C. (2014). Disconnected : youth, new media, and the ethics gap. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press. p. 40

[ryaningersoll]

Young people do not need adults snooping over their shoulders and intruding into their online lives, but they do need adults who will watch their backs and provide them with insights and resources they need to make meaningful choices.

   Henry Jenkins (p. xx) in James, C. (2014). Disconnected : youth, new media, and the ethics gap. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press.  

[ryaningersoll]

...[S]elf-care is never a selfish act--it is simply good stewardship of the only gift I have, the gift I was put on earth to offer to others.

Palmer, P. (2000). Let your life speak. (p. 30). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

[ryaningersoll]

[Vocation] comes from a voice “in here” calling me to be the person I was born to be, to fulfill the original selfhood given me at birth by God.

Palmer, P. (2000). Let your life speak. (p. 10). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

[ryaningersoll]

Vocation does not mean a goal I pursue. It means a calling that I hear. Before I can tell my life what I want to do with it, I must listen to my life telling me who I am. I must listen for the truths and values at the heart of my own identity, not the standards by which I must live--but the standards by which I cannot help but live if I am living my own life.

Palmer, P. (2000). Let your life speak. (pp. 4-5). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

[ryaningersoll]

To give someone a blessing is the most significant affirmation we can offer. It is more than a word of praise or appreciation; it is more than pointing out someone's talents or good deeds; it is more than putting someone in the light. To give a blessing is to affirm, to say "yes" to a person's Belovedness.

Henri Nouwen in Life of the Beloved. pp. 68-69

[ryaningersoll]

A blast from the past (1983) regarding the instructional use of computers. Indeed, these are relevant and wise words for today!

"Leaders in the computers-in-education field agree that all students should become computer literate. This means they should learn about the capabilities and limitations of computers; they should learn the social, vocational and educational implications and effects of computers"

- Moursund, D. (1983). School Administrator's Introduction to the Instructional Use of Computer (p. 29). Eugene: International Council for Computers in Education (University of Oregon).

[ryaningersoll]

I lost count of how many times we were told be quiet and pay attention. It’s normal to do so – teachers have a set amount of time and we need to use it wisely. But in shadowing, throughout the day, you start to feel sorry for the students who are told over and over again to pay attention because you understand part of what they are reacting to is sitting and listening all day. It’s really hard to do, and not something we ask adults to do day in and out. Think back to a multi-day conference or long PD day you had and remember that feeling by the end of the day – that need to just disconnect, break free, go for a run, chat with a friend, or surf the web and catch up on emails. That is how students often feel in our classes, not because we are boring per se but because they have been sitting and listening most of the day already. They have had enough.

"A veteran teacher turned coach shadows 2 students for 2 days – a sobering lesson learned" posted by Grant Wiggins.

[patl-deactivated20180330]

I would like to stress the importance of silence in the ways a minister organizes his own life and that of others.  In a society in which entertainment and distraction are such important preoccupations, ministers are also tempted to join the ranks of those who consider it their primary task to keep other people busy. But our task is the opposite of distraction.  Our task is to help people concentrate on the real but often hidden event of God’s active presence in their lives. Hence, the question that must guide all organizing activity in a [church] is not how to keep people busy, but how to keep them from being so busy that they can no longer hear the voice of God who speaks in silence.

The Way of the Heart: The Spirituality of the Desert Fathers and Mothers” (Henri J. M. Nouwen), p. 63 (via patl)

[ryaningersoll]

Most youth aren’t turning to social media because they can’t resist the lure of technology. They’re responding to a social world in which adults watch and curtail their practices and activities, justifying their protectionism as being necessary for safety. Social media has become an outlet for many youth, an opportunity to reclaim some sense of agency and have some semblance of social power. It has provided a window into society and an outlet for hanging out that these teens didn’t even know they had lost. But teen sociality is fraught and many adults are uncomfortable with teens having access to unstructured time and unmanaged relationships.

danah boyd in It’s Complicated: The Social Lives of Networked Teens. pg. 98

[ryaningersoll]

You don’t have to quit social media; the trick is finding balance.

Nick Bilton in Reclaiming Our (Real) Lives From Social Media http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/17/fashion/reclaiming-our-real-lives-from-social-media.html

[ryaningersoll]

Like Jacobs, I am fully aware that reading in an academic setting cannot always be either slow or pleasurable. Furthermore, like the pleasures of eating, the pursuit of intellectual pleasures ought to be embraced with gratitude for God’s bounty that allows time and ability to read, as well as the wisdom to avoid gluttonous excess. Yet, I think that we must encourage our students to seek the joy that can be found in reading. By both modeling and teaching we can encourage them to view reading as an important part of living well and not simply preparation for a well-lived life.

Matthew Ostercamp in A Case for Slow Reading, pg. 15.