Educational Insanity

In response to Scott McLeod’s 140-character book review contest, I submitted an entry that summarized/synthesized two books in less than 140 characters.  I wrote:

ORGANIZING (EVERYBODY AND/OR EVERYTHING) IS DIFFERENT NOW.

That’s it.  Put together “Here Comes Everybody” and “Everything is Miscellaneous” and that’s what you get.

For those who read the books, those 57 characters should make perfect sense.

For those who’ve read either or neither, it should be fairly self-explanatory.  But, if not, basically, HCE is about how Web 2.0 lowers (and in many cases, eliminates) the transaction costs of organizing a group of like-minded individuals to achieve a common goal.  EIM is about how the digitizing and tagging of information means that old organizing schemes developed for physical information (e.g. the Dewey Decimal system) have given way to digitzing+tagging+aggregating.

That’s it.  Class over.  Thanks for coming and you can now go read something that actually requires book-length treatment.

The link below is to a video of a segment from a Bob Costas show that aired last night. If you’ve come to my blog and know what I tend to write about, even if you’re not a sports fan, you’ll be riveted by this video. It’s worth spending the full 18 minutes watching it (although you could probably skip Braylon Edwards’ comments; poor guy got caught between Lincoln and Douglas). The video speaks to SO many issues, that it’s hard to know where to start with my reflections. First, the link:

[NOTE: Before you click on the link, please know that there is language in the segment that may not be suitable for your workplace (depends on where you work, I suppose) and is probably not suitable for the ears of children]

VIDEO

Now my thoughts:

• I really enjoyed reading Friday Night Lights. It’s the only Buzz Bissinger book I’ve ever read. And, his credibility as a sportswriter/journalist is fairly impeccable. But, OMG…what a crumudgeon! He doesn’t get it; not one bit. He could be every old school administrator, every old academic, every old [insert education professional here].
• I think Will Leitch was caught off guard. Had he known what Bissinger’s take was going to be, I’m sure he’d have been better prepared to eloquently argue the place of and relevance of the blogosphere.
• It’s hilarious that Costas was the moderator. He’s an admitted traditionalist. He railed against the wildcard system for baseball playoffs and was dead wrong (IMHO). This was like having E.D. Hirsch moderate a debate between John Dewey and Edward Thorndike.

I was going to write more; lots more. But, I think I’ll let the video speak for itself…

So, AERA is good and interesting and all, but check this out…

Went to a bar last night with some colleagues.  We sat around two tables next to three tables that had “reserved”  placards on them.   About 1/2 hour after we got there, we found out for whom those tables were reserved:  Francis McDormand, George Wendt (NORM!!!), David Morse and about 4 or 5 other people who were surely actors as well but who I could not identify (I needed my wife there; she would’ve known them all).  I hope I didn’t stare too much; I tend to get a little starstruck.

Watching my Giants hang in there, losing only 7-3 at halftime.  It’s probably not a very good sign when you’re happy to “only be losing by” anything.  We’ll see.

Tom Petty’s now performing.  Really?  Tom Petty’s still alive…err…performing? 

More than anything, I’m happy to be watching on my brand new 60″ HDTV with a surround sound audio package.  I think this may be my first midlife crisis purchase.

Go Giants!

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ziOG_GHNVq0&rel=1]
Sometimes, I feel like there’s too much “ideating” going on within the edublogosphere, and now I’m just another unnecessary ideator. Other times, I think blogging is “doing;” I’m getting my ideas out there. I’m being a public intellectual (that’s informally part of my job description).

What do you think?