Monday...just Monday

Well, my departure for Cyprus is now only 8 days away. I managed to finish up the PKAP supply list today by buying plumb bobs at Lowes. This turned out to be harder than I thought since the first 3 employees I talked to did not know what a plumb bob was. My next step is to divide up the supplies I have among the 4 IUP students going to Cyprus with me so that I only have to worry about the GIS equipment which is bulky and unwieldy.

I read a very interesting article in the Chronicle of Higher Education's The Wired Campus about a paper which takes the position that using current leisure activities, such as iPods and online discussions, actually corrupts the learning process. The article, "Learning to Leisure? Failure, Flame, Blame, Shame, Homophobia and Other Everyday Practices in Online Education" by Juliet Eve and Tara Brabazon, appeared in the Journal of Literacy and Technology's April 2008 volume. It was interesting to read since so many people are eagerly adopting new technologies as soon as they appear. The article, I believe, goes a bit too far in its conclusions.

• "We have gone too far in valuing the student “experience” over scholarly responsibilities to knowledge. We have “facilitated” an unproductive confusion between valuing student views and validating ignorance, discrimination and oppression." (p.58)

RSM