Month: November 2007

Philosophy: A School of Freedom

Philosophy a School of FreedomReading more about the recent UNESCO World Philosophy Day, I came across an interesting report they just released–Philosophy: A School of Freedom. I am not sure how many people have found this recent 303 page guide about Teaching philosophy and learning to philosophize: Status and prospects. I have just added this to my stack of future reading.

 

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MySpace & Facebook and their Evolving Social Ads

I read the interesting article by Jeremiah Owyang, the Web Strategist and Sr. Analyst at Forrester Research (Social Computing). He discussed the evolving advertising models that Facebook and MySpace are creating, and it made me think about the work I am doing with my undergraduate students in the Organizational Communication course I am teaching. This article by Jeremiah was all about stakeholder analysis and how the various organizations and populations involved need to communicate their messages while addressing the concerns and issues the stakeholders raise. I thus created an assignment around this article to help explore these issues and relate them to the real-world (as nearly all of my students use FB or MS). We will look at the article and then work and share within small groups / the class what we learn and consider:

  1. What is the article about?
  2. Who are the stakeholder groups identified / involved?
  3. What are the stakeholder issues for each of these?
  4. Choose one of the issues, and determine toward whom or what the issue is directed.
  5. How may that “whom or what” respond to the issue and that stakeholder?

It is nice when our topic of study in the class can relate directly with things happening in the real world. Isn’t that what education should be about? 

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Happy (Belated) World Philosophy Day!

I just learned that November 15, 2007, was UNESCO World Philosophy Day, thanks to the Talking Philosophy Blog. What an interesting idea, where, according to the UNESCO website, the purpose of this day is:

Aiming to promote and popularize philosophical reflection, World Philosophy Day in 2007 continues to work towards the fostering of independent thought and dialogue.

Reflection, thought, and dialogue–what can make for a better world? Then again, Analytic folks do not speak with Continental ones, the canon depends upon the school of thought from which you hail, and philosophers are known among the humanities professionals for being more exclusive rather than in-. Perhaps UNESCO means this day as a way to heal the discipline itself?

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NEA Reading Study

The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) announced a new reading study today, entitled To Read or Not To Read: A Question of National Consequence. From the limited information they released publicly (i.e., without buying their report), the part that I found most interesting was:

Reading scores for American adults of almost all education levels have deteriorated, notably among the best-educated groups. From 1992 to 2003, the percentage of adults with graduate school experience who were rated proficient in prose reading dropped by 10 points, a 20 percent rate of decline.

Hmm, that does not sound too good. It became even more dire when three consequences of this study were described as:

  • Nearly two-thirds of employers ranked reading comprehension “very important” for high school graduates. Yet 38 percent consider most high school graduates deficient in this basic skill.
  • American 15-year-olds ranked fifteenth in average reading scores for 31 industrialized nations, behind Poland, Korea, France, and Canada, among others.
  • Literary readers are more likely than non-readers to engage in positive civic and individual activities – such as volunteering, attending sports or cultural events, and exercising.

    • I have been a reading teacher and adult literacy advocate both professionally and personally over the years, and I have always maintained that, as the slogan goes, reading is fundamental. It seems the more detailed NEA report is issuing more of a dire call to action, with one of the solutions being The Big Read, a national book-club discussion group in local communities. While I started a local book discussion group with a few neighbors, I think gathering people together to discuss great works of literature (by which I mean enduring texts that speak to different generations about issues in the human condition) is a wonderful idea. While reading is a very personal experience, it becomes richer when the interpretations are shared and discussed and minds are opened to different perspectives and experiences. Let us hope that reading (by which the NEA is primarily not discussing magazines, blogs, peer-reviewed literature, or the like) will be more discussed as a result of this report. By the way, I amongst all the Kant, Harvard Business Reviews, blogs, magazines, journals, and peer-reviewed work for a research project I am working on, I am still reading a classic novel by Willa Cather–One of Ours. It won a Pulitzer Prize in 1923, by the way, and is even available full-text freely online at Bartleby.

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    Blog Readability Test

    This Blog is at a Junior High Reading LevelThanks to Beth Kanter, I was able to perform a Blog Readability Test on my blog, with the following results: I suppose this is good, as my work in adult literacy demonstrates that the lower the reading level, the larger a potential audience there is. I have heard critics state that having a low readability level “dumbs down” the text, but literacy experts have pointed out that nobody ever asks people to write with bigger and more complicated words. For this blogging service, I just wish there would be some explanation as to what literacy indication test was used (e.g., Fry or SMOG),  who is behind the site (for credibility), and why there was a cash advance link at teh bottom of this image (which I removed, as well as the link to it).  Perhaps this is just a link-baiting scam? I like to think of this as an invitation for a programmer to develop a readability test according to more accurate and evidence-based research. This will then help offer real assistance to making the Web more accessible.

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