In response to Dan Brown's Open Letter to Educators

Dan Brown (pogobat on YouTube) posted a video where he discusses the problems he sees with institutionalized education, especially at the university level.  I disagree with some of what he said, and that's good.  Few YouTube videos make me think about their content enough to write a full-out blog post.  Here's Dan's video and my response below it.



As a second-semester college junior, I understand some of Dan's frustrations.  I've sat in classes where professors lecture endless facts that we're expected to regurgitate on the exam.  I hate lesson plans that rely on PowerPoint slides.  Most of those classes, though, are introductory courses.  They lay the groundwork for more in-depth studying.  You have to get through the boring, mindless notetaking before you can get to the more interesting parts of your discipline.  I've had many more classes that are discussion-based, where the 15 to 25 students in the class are expected to contribute as much as the professor.

A big difference with the classes I've taken is that I attend a small liberal arts college.  By small, I mean 2,500 undergraduate students--not anywhere near the 18,500 undergrads at the University of Nebraska (Lincoln, where I assume Dan went).  Smaller size means smaller classes.  More interaction with professors and other students.  Your major matters too.  I imagine I would have much thicker, fuller notebooks thanks to hours of lecture if I were a biology or chemistry major.  I study media and communication, however, so we read and watch a lot and then talk about it.  My class materials are stacks of scholarly articles with my scribbled notes and comments in the margins.

I agree that colleges and universities do need to change in some respects.  Dan talks about the availability of so much information via the internet.  He says it's no longer necessary to test students on memorized information because all of it is readily available online.  In some ways, he's right.  There's really no reason for me to know every nation's capital city when I can Google them if need be.  It's one thing, however, to look up specific information and another to look up everything.  Looking up some information all the time instead of memorizing it isn't practical.  I can look up the first 20 digits of pi if necessary, but there's no reason for me not to know pi equals 3.14 for everyday mathematics. Many people in Dan's video comments have said that there's no way doctors can operate without memorizing facts and procedures, and they're absolutely correct.  YouTube tutorials are good for learning how to play a song on the guitar but not for performing surgery.

I don't see memorization vs. the availability of information as the most important issue when compared to other aspects of the university system.  Publishing companies continue to raise the prices of textbooks without making significant changes to new editions.  Grade inflation in the U.S. encourages mediocre qualities of work.  Engaged, interested students can get as much out of their college education as they put in, but many students drift through, doing the minimum amount of work required to receive a degree.  There are problems on both sides:  how universities are structured as well as students' attitudes toward their education.  I agree that changes need to be made, but what, specifically, needs to happen?

Dan says educational institutions today need to reinvent themselves or the world will move on without them.  Education needs to fundamentally change and go beyond simply using e-mail, online databases, and Blackboard.  But he doesn't say what should be done.  Online courses? Already in session.  Using YouTube for class demonstrations and examples?  Happening.  I'm all for new teaching strategies, but what other way is there to learn information than to study it?  There are different learning styles, yes, like visual, auditory, tactile...but how do you reinvent those?  Or where do you go instead?  Scenes from The Matrix come to mind, directly uploading knowledge into human brains...

I agree that change is necessary, but I don't envision an overhaul of the system.  Change will be gradual because despite its problems, a college education is still worth the time and effort.

Assuming you live on campus, college offers you a unique time to learn.  You don't have the distractions of home and family.  You've moved past high school drama (hopefully).  You have new sources of intellectual stimulation all over campus, both in and out of the classroom.  You dedicate as much time as you want to your studies and choose how much you get involved with other aspects of campus life such as sports, clubs, and organizations.

College is a time to grow as a person, not only as a student.  Nothing on the internet can simulate four years of living with thousands of your peers.  Besides classes, you're in charge of your entire schedule:  when you do your work, sleep, eat, do laundry, and hang out with friends. You learn to interact with people from all kinds of backgrounds.  You use your time as you see fit and with any luck, still love learning after graduation.

There's room for improvement, obviously, but we don't need to (and shouldn't) scrap the university system.

Walk in the Shadows

UPDATE: WitS is on indefinite hiatus but we're playing on the Supernatural.tv forums here.

My friend and I have started a new forum, Walk in the Shadows, to play Mafia (aka Wolf). Not the Mafia game on Facebook, but this one. It's a game of logic. You know only your own role. If you're a good guy, you find the bad guys and get rid of them. If you're a bad guy, you want to stay alive.

The main difference playing the game online is that you have only text to go on. You can't read people's facial expressions to see if they're lying...and you don't have to worry about your face or voice giving away a lie either. That's where it gets interesting.

Anyway, if it sounds fun to you (and it is!), please check it out. I'm Impulse there, one of the admins. Come say hi. :)

Also, the other administrator on WitS made the image at the top of this post, because he's awesome.

So you wanna talk about fandom

I'm taking a course on pop culture this semester, and last week, we talked about fandom.  For the purpose of discussion, we defined fandom as activity besides simply watching every episode of a show or reading every book in a series.  To be considered a fan, a person must participate in something greater than whatever they're a fan of.  So joining messageboards or fan sites; creating fanfiction, fanart, videos, or blogs; attending conventions, or serious discussion with other fans; buying related merchandise.

We read about Star Trek and while it continues to have a huge following, the original series is a dated example for today's college students.  If you want to talk about great examples of fandom where people come together because of a shared interest in something fictional, talk about Firefly fans' increasing presence at conventions eight years after FOX gave them 13 episodes and then canceled their beloved show.  Talk about what the Harry Potter series has done for children's reading, or the HP Alliance's success in raising $110,000 for Haiti.

You can still talk about dressing like characters if you want but we've had better examples of fandom since Star Trek.

Music Migration

So, let go, yeah let go
Just get in
Oh, it's so amazing here
It's all right
'Cause there's beauty in the breakdown

"Let Go" by Frou Frou

If you visit music streaming sites, you may have heard about thesixtyone's re-design.  A few days ago, the designers revamped the whole site without letting users know ahead of time.  Thesixtyone is now flashier, features full-screen photos of the artists you're listening to, and roll-over menus all over the screen.  Some sites--a lot, actually--have written praise for the bold move.  TechCrunch and the Los Angeles Times have both commented on how much better thesixtyone is now and what a bold choice the designers made.  Many long-term users of thesixtyone left comments on those articles detailing what we lost in the re-design, most notably, the community features that made the site so unique in the first place.

Users e-mailed the designers to voice their concerns about the lack of features in the re-design, but the site owners aren't responding.  Meanwhile, browsing new artists and songs on thesixtyone is more difficult.  The site feeds you tracks to listen to rather than letting you hunt down your own music, as it was before.  The community features that remain are buried behind menus.  Artists can't keep in touch with their audiences and are selling less tracks since the re-design launched.  The new sixtyone may be a nice music streaming site to new users, but the creators of the site alienated the people who made thesixtyone so great in the first place.

Out of all of this, something beautiful and incredible is happening.  Thesixtyone's creators took away community features, but they can't kill the community.  Word spread around that people were moving on to another music site called uvumi.  Uvumi isn't exactly like the old version of thesixtyone, but it has a good community and independent artists who truly care about their work.  It is a social music site in the sense that artists and listeners have conversations.  All users talk to each other and discover music together.  That was the spirit of thesixtyone.  People aren't putting up with the overhaul (read: destruction) of thesixtyone, and we're gathering on uvumi.  (You can find me here.)  The site grew by 30% in the past week.  We're inviting artists to create profiles and upload their music on uvumi.  The staff have been very welcoming and wonderful in accommodating the rapid increase in site activity.

We're finding each other and sticking together, maintaining the community and enjoying our music away from thesixtyone.

Clark Kent is not a commentary on the human race

I haven't seen Kill Bill, but I came across this quote on tumblr the other day:

A staple of the superhero mythology is, there’s the superhero and there’s the alter ego. Batman is actually Bruce Wayne, Spider-Man is actually Peter Parker. When that character wakes up in the morning, he’s Peter Parker. He has to put on a costume to become Spider-Man. And it is in that characteristic Superman stands alone. Superman didn’t become Superman. Superman was born Superman. When Superman wakes up in the morning, he’s Superman. His alter ego is Clark Kent. His outfit with the big red “S”, that’s the blanket he was wrapped in as a baby when the Kents found him. Those are his clothes. What Kent wears - the glasses, the business suit - that’s the costume. That’s the costume Superman wears to blend in with us. Clark Kent is how Superman views us. And what are the characteristics of Clark Kent. He’s weak… he’s unsure of himself… he’s a coward. Clark Kent is Superman’s critique on the whole human race.
— Bill (Kill Bill Vol.2, 2004)

I've read this argument elsewhere online and I've heard it from a few friends too.  I agree with the point that Superman was born Superman and that sets him apart from other superheroes. His alter ego is Clark Kent as opposed to a superhero persona that other characters like Bruce Wayne and Peter Parker had to create.

I don't agree with the argument, however, that the Clark Kent guise is a critique of the human race.  Superman doesn't dress like Clark Kent because he thinks that's how the average human being is.  Superman dresses like Clark Kent as a disguise.  He wants to be under the radar, to be the last person anyone would expect to be Superman so that he can have a life outside of the blue suit and cape.  So the glasses, the dorky behavior, the insecurities--that's all an act to distance himself from the Superman persona.  Superman could have chosen to stay on the farm in Smallville.  He could have played professional football.  He could have been a travel agent.  He could have done anything, but he wanted to keep a low profile and stay close to world news.  He took a job at the Daily Planet and he pretends to be the most awkward dork in the world. No one thinks he's anything like Superman because if anyone did, Superman couldn't attempt to live a normal life in Metropolis.

Bruce Wayne uses a deeper voice when he's Batman.  Peter Parker constantly banters with villains and makes wisecracks as he web-slings around New York City.  They put on acts like Superman does, but their situations are polar opposites.  Batman and Spider-Man make spectacles of themselves while Clark Kent tries to blend into the background.  The Clark Kent guise is Superman's understanding of the type of people we don't pay attention to but not a stereotype of humans.

You cannot skim a video blog

Well...you can.  You can drag your slider through the video to the end.  It'd be like watching choppy stop-motion, but you won't know what the video is about unless there are a lot of visuals.  Even then, it's iffy.  This may be the reason why my YouTube watching habits have tapered off but I still have a general idea of what's going on with the blogs I read.

See, this is what happens.  When I start to lose interest in a YouTube channel, I take a break from the videos or I stop watching every single video on a channel.  When I start losing interest in a blog, though, I skim entries.  I can still get the gist of what they're about without paying full attention.  Skim and scroll down.

So lately, I keep up with only the YouTube channels I'm most interested in, and that's a select few.  I'm watching less videos and less likely to click on a video as soon as it goes up.

And yet, I subscribed to someone new yesterday.

Updates on Spider-man's reboot

More news and discussion on movie sites today about Sony's plans for the Spider-man reboot.  According to Screen Rant and /Film, James Vanderbilt has already written the script for the new movie thanks to Sony's pre-planning with how things would go after the fourth film.

EW reported that the reboot will be gritty and contemporary.  Hopefully Vanderbilt's script isn't gritty--that's not what Spider-man is.  Contemporary would work, I guess.  Make him live in the 21st century. 

Good luck to the director who has to follow Raimi...see the links above for more info.