tokyokevin: Kevin Ryan in Tokyo

Kevin putting it out there

  • Audio Books and Driving

    drivingJim Dean, my dad’s colleague and long-since-retired English teacher at Larkin high school near Chicago has a wonderful laugh and a razor sharp wit. His appreciation of English is also remarkable. When he sent me this link to an account of driving across country while listening to an audio book version of Moby Dick, it made me smile. I love audio books and reading as well, and find they are very different experiences. Especially with something like Moby Dick. The money quote from the New York Times account:

    I was always glad at day’s end too, when we parked and turned off “Moby-Dick.” Not that the book ended then. Usually, in the evening, I would begin reading the book where we had left off listening. I have never been so struck by the silence of the printed word. I have never grasped so clearly how inward words have to go in our minds before they come alive. I was the one leaning forward, hearkening to Ishmael, keenly aware of the whiteness of the page, just as I had been every time I’d read “Moby-Dick” before.

    But I also smiled because just last summer, after more than ten years without a real road trip, I escorted my daughter along the left coast, shopping for colleges. Instead for flying from Dad’s retirement home near Denver, I drove to LA to meet her. I threw in an old CD audio book about how the Irish Saved Civilization, Dad loved it. It made for great listening (anything about Ireland needs to be both rich in language and delivery), speaking of green verdant fields as I passed Moab, fearing the Goths as I reached the Grand Canyon. Maybe I will try an audio version of Joyce if I drive around Hawaii. Incongruent enough? Maybe Maugham.

    But I keep wondering. Now, who’s Ishmael?

    ***1 AM Update (too much coffee). Over at my favorite blog, the Dish, Andrew Sullivan points us to research that says even if we are reading silently, we are hearing the words. Love those Internet Coincidences.

  • MOOC Participation: See it twice and Click

    Et MOOC LogoOver at the #ETMOOC things are humming along nicely. So far, I would call this the Google MOOC, because a lot of the tools have migrated over to Google (calendar, G+), and I like it. I live in Google, just bought myself a ChromeBook and can’t put it down.

    But as we tease out threads in the first couple of weeks, I have met a few new people, which is the best part of any MOOC (or conference, or trip, or meeting). This will help sustain. And sustenance is the key here.

    Because this is already looking like the best cMOOC that I have had the opportunity to be a part of. CCK08 was nice and centralized, I think that was the one using Moodle. Then the short one in 2010, which left me in the dirt more because life got in the way than anything. I really liked Change11, mostly because it was stretched out over 9 months, and I could look ahead, pick and choose, and participate based on a longer term strategy.

    Here at the #ETMOOC I see a balance being approached. The term is shorter, the interaction both more organized (on the macro level) and less organized (micro level opportunities for serendipity), and a huge amount of interaction (again, we will see if it goes beyond the third week swoon). Kudos to those who set up evening sessions, which are morning here in Tokyo. The lunchtime ones are smack dab in the middle of the night. 

    So I just want to share a new way I have found to follow threads. I read quickly, skimming, with some scanning in for terms related to linguistics, my field. If I see something mentioned twice, especially a link, I will follow up on it (catalog, and or curate it). This allows me to wander just enough that I can get back and cover most of the stuff to winnow out my nuggets. Like a news reporter, get a verifying source, and then follow up on it.

    That is how I found Catherine Cronin’s Digital Identity post.  Good stuff.

     

  • MOOCs for Language Learning?

    I have been doing research about technology and Attention, but am by profession (and professor) an English teacher. Language learning has included a lot of parallel research to technology, psychology or psycholinguistics (think Nick Ellis on Frequency of Input, and Emergentism, and Learned Attention and language as a Complex Adaptive System. More in the days to come. #etmooc

  • Shooting children in the US now commonplace

    Cartoon Nick Anderson Houston ChronicleAnother shooting. James Fallows (Atlantic) outlined why nothing would change after the Colorado movie theater massacre. He was sadly right. One reason I am happy to live in Japan. We had a handful of gun fatalities last year. Mostly criminals shooting each other. So those that say, “If we outlaw guns, only the outlaws will have them.” are correct. But there is another side to it. The abhorrence of violence here is wonderful to be part of. It took me years to overcome my “Rambo” tendencies and think before acting. Having kids helped.  Not having access to guns makes those tendencies less lethal.
    Unfortunately, the gun culture is so ingrained in the US it will take at least one generation to change. Probably two. After the will to change turns into legislation. Which will take a long time itself. Access to mental health is another issue where public safety should be more important than politics, cuts to health care in the US are also part of the problem, making a lethal combination.
    Code: *zemi3*

  • Homework. Does it do any good?

    I don’t think so. If you consider what is traditionally considered homework (exercises to drill into memory some point taught in class), there is controversy. Andrew Sullivan over at the Daily Dish points us to Louis Menand over at the New Yorker.  In it he tells us about a prominent researcher who

    According to the leading authority in the field, Harris Cooper, of Duke University, homework correlates positively—although the effect is not large—with success in school.

    Homework in Holland

    Of course students who do more homework are more successful. But you could also say that students who are successful tend to do more homework. It could be that the successful students are doing something else that is causing their success, and the homework just happens to be a coincidence. Thin about the kids in your class who do the homework. They do a lot of other things, like show up early for class, talk to the teacher more, ask questions more, have parents who make them do their homework, talk about homework at dinner, or just talk about other things at dinner. I could go on, but you see the point. I am not convinced that homework helps very much.

    What I AM convinced of is that students who do work on their own outside of class because they are curious or want to solve a problem are headed for success, no matter what their grades show.