Category: globalvoices
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Racist games teach wrong values
I know it is considered by some “politically incorrect” to talk about technology which teaches “the wrong values,” but I am not going to apologize for my normative stance on this issue. According to a San Diego NBC affiliate, racist games like “Border Patrol” (available online for free) are outraging people across the world, especially…
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Schools as prisons?
How many of our nation’s educational administrators view schools essentially as prisons, where the primary activity for students is “doing time?” Hopefully not many. This story last week from Ingelwood, California, however, suggests at least a few principals may have this view. At Worthington Elementary School, the principal enforced a “nuclear attack” lockdown so severe…
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MySpace, Conversation, and Songs of the Heart
Bud the Teacher posted a new podcast on the subject of MySpace last week. He stated in the podcast: We are creating networks in our schools that don’t reflect the realities of our students and their lives, their literacies, and what is important to them. Bud commented how many of his students have Xanga and…
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Podcast53: Censored for Relevance
This podcast features reflections on educative experiences which inspire conversations and ideas relating to being “censored for relevance.” Educators should be reading and having conversations about social networking websites like MySpace, yet some school districts ban all access to MySpace as well as any website (including this blog) which even mentions the word. When authoritarian…
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Journal Prompt for students
Here is a thought provoking weblink and prompt for students writing in journals for class: Rebecca MacKinnon’s post from April 1, 2006: “How does it feel when your brother gets detained without charge for over a month and the police won’t tell you why, or where he is?” Rebecca’s closing sentences in this blog post…
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Censored for relevance
I have been saddened but also enlightened to learn in the last couple of weeks that this blog, Moving at the Speed of Creativity, is censored (blocked) within some– and perhaps many– Texas school districts. The reason? I have blogged in the past about the social networking site MySpace, and some (I don’t know how…
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The Power of One
Just finished watching “The Power of One” for the first time. Wow. An incredible film, but memorable most for the tragic and ongoing story of hatred and racism– and the struggles against those foes– which it portays and reveals. I have read “Covenant” by James Michener as well as “Cry, the Beloved Country” by Alan…
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Value of life, forgiveness, the Holocaust
We are living in a small world, but the ease of communication that is brought by the blogsophere and videoconferencing technologies does not change the incredible pain and suffering experienced by many in the past and present. While reading the Global Voices Online – Armenia blog posts tonight I read through to find Onnik Krikorian’s…
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Liberian Refugees and Bloggers
I just finished watching Andy Carvin’s compelling short film, “Refugees: The Liberians of Buduburam.” Wow. I am not sure where to begin writing about my response to this. Let me start by noting the chain of connections and links that led me to this video. Yesterday on a long car drive back to Lubbock, we…
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ClustrMaps
It’s a small world after all. Every once in awhile a web 2.0 technology, website, or service makes me exclaim loudly and almost (or actually) fall out of my chair. ClustrMaps is the cause today. The map below shows the locations of over 200 different people who have visited my blog in the last 24…