Scaffolding for learning on training wheels.
One point from Stian’s post got me thinking as I was reading the article: He suggested an important part of the ZPD scaffolding notion was that after a learner has learned the scaffolds and their affordances, the training wheels become unnecessary. Stian also mentioned how this training wheels metaphor was not operative in Knowledge Forum, [...]
Reputation Online
Recently, Michael Arrington posted on TechCrunch to suggest that as more and more details of our lives are discoverable online, “indiscretions” would become less damaging. His basic point was that Trying to control, or even manage, your online reputation is becoming increasingly difficult. And much like the fight by big labels against the illegal sharing [...]
CCK09: On the difficulty of the Connectivist revolution.
This post is for assignment #1 for Stephen Downes and George Siemens Connectivism and Connective Knowledge course, 2009. Connectivism represents a new way of knowing. But if it is correct, it is the way we have been knowing all along, and may not require a leap across an enormous gap to adapt to the new [...]
Re-Vision of Earth paper (Metaphors of Scientific Advancement)
The class I wrote this for was a unique colloquium in the honors college. It was called “Re-Vision of Earth” and was about the process of scientific revolutions. I continued my exploration of metaphors, trying to pin down what metaphors we use to describe humanity’s process of scientific advancement. Is it a matter of increasing [...]
Causes of War paper
The class I wrote this paper for was called “Causes of War,” and it was highly theoretical. In this paper, I analyzed and rejected realist explanations for the outbreak of World War I in favor of an understanding that individuals who desired war acted to bring it about. Causes of War Final Paper-Elite-led violence and [...]
Applying Theories of Nationalism to Ethnic Violence
In my International Relations class, Spring 2006, I wrote a paper on “Applying Theories of Nationalism to Ethnic Violence: Can we explain, predict and stop Ethnic violence before it starts?” Theories of Ethnic Violence [.DOC]
Constitutional Law paper on Gitmo detainee
My Winter 2006 ConLaw class was fascinating, particularly because of the focus on contemporary Supreme Court cases. Our final assignment was to propose a ruling on a “War on Terror” detainee case pending before the court, Mahdi v. Rumsfeld. Ahmad Mahdi (For some reason our teacher called him that instead of “Ahmad Hamdan”) is currently [...]
Policy Analysis: Offshoring the Economy
In the beginning of my third year, I took a political economy course and wrote an analysis of the problem of American companies outsourcing labor to lower-cost foreign workers. I felt that the domestic economy had to meet to this pressure by developing skilled workers who could move the state-of-the-art ahead, because of the weaknesses [...]
Moral Environmentalism
In a tedious class on environmental politics, I wrote this paper exploring what the present generation’s moral responsibility to posterity requires it to do about energy use. This paper is interesting to me now, looking back on it, because I hadn’t yet taken John Davidson’s class on Intergenerational Politics, so my ideas about the moral [...]
Metaphors of Bush’s 2004 reelection paper
In one of my first honors college “colloquium” classes, taught by Mark Johnson, I was introduced to his and George Lakoff’s theory of cognitive metaphor. This paper explores a metaphor of moral strength to evaluate its role in President Bush’s 2004 reelection victory, which was often publicly attributed to high turnout of “values voters.” Since [...]
Recent Comments