Elizabeth Smart and America's "Lurking Polygamists" Fantasy
Topic: fringe journal episodes

Podcast / mp3 file

 When the young teen-ager, Elizabeth Smart, had the misfortune of being spirited away in the middle of the night from her Salt Lake City home in by what was, at the time, an unknown abductor, the nation erupted in wild speculation. Beyond the justifiable fear of abduction by a serial pedophile rapist, tabloids and serious journals alike erupted in lurid depictions of lurking polygamists who were always scouting for additional candidates for their communities. It was, after all, Utah, and the home of Mormons, whose history of sanctioned polygamy, is a source of embarrassment for some, titillation for outsiders.

In a terrible case of "no good deed goes unpunished," a homeless man for whom the Smarts felt sympathy and employed in order to help him, kidnapped Elizabeth and forced her to become his second "wife" in his own self-designed variant of a polygamous apocalyptic cult.

In the way the story was depicted, and Elizabeth Smart's miraculous return, thanks to her sister's observations, it became fairly evident that non-Mormon America continued to be morbidly fascinated by the idea of polygamists in Utah, even though the Mormon church will not tolerate polygamy of any kind.

The truth is, the American public desperately wants polygamy to exist.

To read the entire text, click here.

Memes of E-Learning and the Internet: Source-Memes, Contagion, and the Next Big Cultural Meme
Topic: Learning Theory

Podcast / audio file

When Richard Dawkins and David Dennett first proposed that Darwin's theory of evolution could be applied to culture through the language of DNA (memes), it met a need.  At that time, there was no way to easily explain how and why certain robust ideas appear seemingly simultaneously throughout a culture, and then begin to influence the culture and evolve with it, ultimately affecting its survival.

Memes are convenient ways to explain the emergence, influence, replication, and persistence of ideas, even if one does not completely accept the evolutionary theory mechanisms that support the concept.

A meme is an idea, but a remarkably robust one with sufficient complexity to be able to adapt itself to many cultural settings and situations. The elements within the idea have the capacity to produce copies of themselves, and can show up in different forms as they are modified by their environment (Holdcroft & Lewis, 2000).

For more, please click here...

Now, more than thirty years after the publication of Richard Dawkin's The Selfish Gene, the concept has entered popular culture. Perfectly illustrated by the movie, The Matrix (dir. Andy and Larry Wachowski, 1999), one could think of the Smiths as one meme -- the physical manifestation of or a metaphor for the ways in which society enforces conformity and punishes those who seek the truth behind what lies beyond a glittery false consciousness comprised of consumer products, etc.

Small Is Beautiful, Economic Development, Education: Lessons and Insights
Topic: Leadership in E-Learning
podcast / mp3 file

E. F. Schumacher's seminal work, Small Is Beautiful, while a bit dated (it was first published in 1973), provides valuable insight into how and why countries that have high poverty rates and low economic growth may have problems with technology. It also suggests why technology implemented by industrialized nations may not help lesser-developed nations progress, but instead, heightens dependency. Schumacher helps explain what we have seen with globalization; namely, that the gap between the rich and the poor widens, and that corruption and exploitation often dominate all human enterprise. Eventually, poorer nations lose their autonomy and production capacity, resulting in crumbling infrastructure and ever-increasing poverty.

Schumacher makes the case that technology and industrialization projects in lesser-developed nations are inappropriate and thus harmful to the nation. His thoughts are echoed by John Perkins in Confessions of an Economic Hit Man (2004), who describes how "white elephant" and gigantic development projects funded by means of loans from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) or World Bank often lead to massive foreign debt, which destabilizes an entire country's economy and results in a drain of funds which are used to pay off the debt rather than in education, roads, health, and infrastructure.

Full text available here:
http://elearnqueen.blogspot.com/2006/07/small-is-beautiful-economic.html
E-Learning Queen

Wi-Fi Nursing Home: Connectivity for a Better Life for Seniors
Topic: New Technologies
downloadable mp3 file / podcast
Prevailing views hold that seniors are computer-phobic, but the reality is that seniors use and benefit from blogs, podcasts, myspace (etc), Skype (etc), as well as from e-mail and access to the Internet. The truth is, seniors are avid users of the Internet, and there should be no reason that failing eyesight, hearing, mobility (arthritis, etc.), or cognitive disabilities should cut them off from the world, and from regular contact with loved ones – even if they are in assisted living, a nursing home, and no longer able to live at home or with family. In fact, assisted access to the Internet could serve as powerful motivation to stay intellectually engaged with the world, to maintain healthy habits, and to combat the loneliness and depression that often follows a senior as they move into their new habitat.

Granted, the man or woman who came of age in the 1940s or 1950s has seen huge changes in terms of communication, information dissemination, and technology. Chances are, they came of age in a time when all data entry and processing was done by someone else, and the computing capacity you hold in the palm in your hand used to require a city block of computers.

Nevertheless, we tend to forget that older citizens do not categorically resist technological change. How could they? If the stereotypes were true, not one senior would be able to function in a society that has been typified by rapid and persistent technological change.

for the entire text of this article, please click here:
http://elearnqueen.blogspot.com/2006/07/wi-fi-and-computer-labs-for-every.html
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The Medic: Heart of a Dog -- Somewhere in Kuwait
Topic: fringe journal episodes
downloadable mp3 file / podcast

The small, mixed-breed dogs lay on the rough wooden table, spread out evenly as though prepared for enshrouding and burial.

The night had the bluish-black cast of the hand-carved and hand-buffed ebony I had seen in a marketplace on the outskirts of Nairobi. The wood had been carved into the shape of a black rhinoceros, then buffed with natural oils and a soft cloth.

“What are you doing with them? Do you really have to experiment on dogs?” I asked the Medic.

The laboratory smelled vaguely of roses, with overtones of pungent chrysanthemum. The weather outside was violent. Lightning illuminated the skies in unpredictable flashes, and the glow cast along the walls and on the Medic’s face was an unhealthy greenish gray.

The crash of thunder, the blank, unadorned walls made me shiver. I avoided looking into the mirror.

“I’m surprised that it is raining like this in the middle of the desert,” I remarked.

“What makes you think you’re still in the desert?” asked the Medic. “You were asleep for a long time. It often happens like that. You sleep for three days straight. Something deep in your psyche tells you you’re safe. You’re out of the kill zone.”

For the rest of this episode, please listen to the podcast or visit The Fringe Journal:
http://fringejournal.blogspot.com/2006_05_31_fringejournal_archive.html
http://fringejournal.blogspot.com/2006_05_31_fringejournal_archive.html

Apocalypse in Academia, or, Brave, New Mega-College
Topic: Leadership in E-Learning
Podcast / downloadable mp3 file

Imagine being in the middle of your junior year and your college suddenly announces it's going belly-up. This is a scenario is increasingly likely to happen as nimble private colleges and aggressive for-profits pull enrollments away from traditional brick-and-mortar campuses into their online programs that are convenient, timely, relevant, and often presented in an accelerated format which allows students to obtain their degrees quickly.

What are the implications for the students left stranded? Here are a few possible things that might happen in the future.

1. Mergers and acquisitions in the academic world.

continued here:
http://elearnqueen.blogspot.com/2006_06_09_elearnqueen_archive.html

Perhaps Our Kids Really Are Smarter Than We Were: Technology and E-Learning
Topic: Learning Theory
downloadable mp3 file / podcast

I had an interesting conversation with my son about e-learning and social networking. He described the way the Internet makes one think and behave differently. I have to admit that I was just sort of nodding in agreement, when he started to describe how and why adolescents of today do not feel the need to succumb to peer pressure when it comes to experimenting with drugs.

“We’re smarter than your generation, Mom,” he said. “We’ve moved beyond that. We evolved.”

I have to say I disagree with him that teens are not affected by peer pressure. I see peer pressure as a part of social learning and group conditioning, both from a behavioral standpoint and a cognitive one.

Nevertheless, my son’s rationale made me pause for a moment and reflect my beliefs and attitudes about the knowledge and skills bases of today’s (and tomorrow’s) learners.

Could my son be right? Are kids today smarter than my generation when we were kids? Part of me agrees, for the following reasons:

1. Tech-savvy kids are adept at managing large amounts of data with technology. They are also used to teaching themselves how to solve problems in an interactive environment. As James Paul Gee has described in his book, What Video Games Have to Teach Us about Teaching and Learning (2004), when playing a video game, the average child learns quickly how to do effective task analysis in a “real-time” setting and to obtain the necessary information which is available on-demand in order to achieve the goal. This is a perfect example of situated, outcomes-oriented learning, and children of this generation are extremely skilled at it by age 6 or 7, depending on how long they’ve been playing video games.

for the entire post, please click here:
link to full post / blog

Great New Program: Turn Your Image Files Into a PowerPoint - Instantly!
Topic: New Technologies
Podcast

GLTImager, which I like to call the "Dog and Pony Bot," is an amazing time-saving program for anyone who has to make a presentation that includes lots of graphics. It takes your image files, and in a one-click process, populates a PowerPoint presentation.

The graphic files do not have to be the kinds you'd use on a web page (jpg or gif). GLTImager is much more flexible and can use the files that engineers, scientists, doctors, nurses, health professionals, designers, architects, accountants, strategic planners, marketing consultants use in business, education, technology, medicine, and more. This program has other powerful features as well. It can organize image files, catalogue them, and either import or extract from Adobe Illustrator, Corel Draw, or Powerpoint.

For a limited time, the program is available for download. Please contact info@dogandponybot.com.

The GLTImager is perfect for use with social networking groups and communities that share images such a Flickr (www.flickr.com), myspace.com, and Live Journal. (http://www.livejournal.com).

To read the entire article, please go to this site:

http://elearnqueen.blogspot.com/2006/05/great-new-program-turn-your-image.html

Inside E-learning - new articles
Topic: instructional content
downloadable mp3 file / podcast

Inspiring E-Learners to "Listen" to Each Other
This article deals with how to build community in an online course, and to make truly dynamic discussion areas where the students really get excited & are eager to post and to read each others' posts.

How Can I Tell If I've Found a Good Online Course?
This article lists several key characteristics of online courses, and discusses what makes an online course effective. This deals with instructional design as well as the technology, curriculum, and the instructional activities of a course.


When Online Is Better Than Face-to-Face Instruction
Can online ever be better than face to face? Hear Susan try to defend this one! Of course, I say "yes, online can be better than f2f," but it is possible that you won't agree with me at all. Check it out.

Scene from Koper, Slovenia, March 2006.

What is the Ideal Master's Degree for the Homeschool Parent or Facilitator?
Topic: Leadership in E-Learning
podcast // downloadable mp3 file

You might think that a master's degree in education would be perfect for the homeschool facilitator.

After working with homeschoolers who have graduated and who are taking online college courses, I would have to disagree. It has been my experience that the best students come from environments where the homeschool teacher (or better said, facilitator) has a broad background. This is most often an interdisciplinary degree, and has included study in the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences.

I don't want to imply that the topics and concerns of traditional education degrees are irrelevant. Actually, nothing could be further from the truth. I believe that including courses in motivation, curriculum development, assessment, and cognitive psychology allows the facilitator to bring all the courses together and to create the environment that fosters deeper learning.

Here is a list of course areas I believe to be vital for an the interdisciplinary master's degree for the homeschool parent or facilitator:

Master of Arts Degree - General Course Categories / Themes

Foundations of and Topics in Humanities (3 hrs)

Foundations of and Topics in Social Sciences (3 hrs)

Foundations of and Topics in Natural Sciences (3 hrs)

Motivation and Goal-Setting (3 hrs)

Technologies of Creative Learning (3 hrs)

Writing and Research Methods - (3 hrs) - (how to use databases, online libraries; how to evaluate one's sources and information from the Internet; how to write term papers and cite sources correctly)

Philosophy of Curriculum Design (3 hrs): structured courses vs. "unlearning" or "unschooling" (here is an article on unschooling herehttp://elearnqueen.blogspot.com/2006/03/e-learning-in-2016-unschooling.html )

History and Philosophy of Education in the U.S. (3 hrs)

Basic Psychometrics (3 hrs): Structure, Design, and Function of Tests and Assessments

Current Social Problems and Issues (3 hrs)

History of Values: Philosophy, Ethics, or Religious Thought (3 hrs)

Total hours: 33 hours

I would not advocate a thesis. In this case, I believe that it is better to have the student pursue more electives which align with his or her needs. A thesis can be construed as needless torture for both student and mentor(s).

I'm not aware of any schools that offer a program shaped in this way. Excelsior College (Albany, NY)(http://www.excelsior.edu, a regionally accredited distance college, offers a Master of Arts in Liberal Studies and sufficient flexibility to be able to design and take most of the courses listed above. They, however, do require a thesis.