I love magazines. I take them with me wherever I go. In fact, I love my magazines so much I hauled my entire collections of New Yorkers and Harper’s along with me when I moved across the country as a student. The thought of throwing them away was simply too much to bear. Sadly, I eventually had to part with my treasured collections for the simple matter of space.
I guess old habits die hard because I am now currently collecting Runner’s World, a magazine I’ve been reading since 2004. In fact, it was a single issue of Runner’s World that got me started running. A subscription kept me going strong.
One of the things I love about the magazine is the range of content - from newbie to ultramarathoner. I’ll read stuff that doesn’t apply to me at all simply because it’s well written (good editorial choices). I’ll stay up into the wee hours when my subscription arrives. I take it with me wherever I go. For example, as much as I love the online version, I can’t take the computer into the tub for my post run ice bath. And that magazine is only way I can get through an ice bath.
Continue reading ‘Web2.0 magazines: Runner’s World’
As social networking becomes more and more popular, I am increasingly curious about the accountability of user-selected signifiers as an authentic thin slice of identity. As an aesthetically-inclined person, I’ve always been interested in the notion of “taste” - specifically, who and what defines it and what it really says about who we are. Additionally, how does that investment change according to age and identity formation?
For example, if I list Ulysses as a favourite book, am I a Joyce lover or a pretentious snob? According to Hugo Liu, a researcher of digital aesthetic theory, the aesthetics of our self representation are predominantly defined by our investments in social and cultural capital.
“Why does one like what one likes? According to the literature reviewed below, one’s tastes are influenced both by socioeconomic and aesthetic factors. Socioeconomic factors—such as money, social class, and education—can shape tastes, because access to cultural goods may require possession of these various forms of capital. Aesthetic factors—such as paradigms of personality (e.g., degree of sarcasm), sentiment (e.g., utopian versus dystopian), and identity (e.g., degree of fashionableness)—define motifs toward which one’s tastes may gravitate.”
Last night, while enjoying my new monitor a little too late into the night, I surfed my way into an interesting crossroads of ideas. Namely, the apparent conflict of amateurs versus professionals - a topic I visited recently with my post on citizen editors.
At one corner of my web browsing crossroads is Andrew Keen, the controversial author of Cult of the Amateur: How Today’s Internet is Killing Our Culture. Keen happened to be on a local television show last night so I read up about him online. I shouldn’t have to explain what sort of reception he’s received from those of us invested in web2.0 paradigms, tools and trends. And I’d summarize his thesis if his book title didn’t do so already.
Continue reading ‘Memes: Amateurs v. professionals’
Traditionally, students with learning challenges are labeled, stigmatized and streamed. Difference gets defined as deficit, and deficit comes to define identity. In some schools, this is still the case.
One of the most inspiring figures I learned about at teacher’s college is pediatric professor Mel Levine, whose original research and approaches have helped to redefine what we mean by special education. Levine’s research draws attention to the way that learning differences are typically framed as deficits - a logic that obscured the learner’s strengths. Levine identified how our traditional education system privileges one type of mind over all others. From Levine’s interview with NPR:
“Levine delivers the same message, that all people — and especially students — are wired differently. He preaches the virtues of helping kids understand their strengths and weaknesses as part of understanding the way learning works.” (NPR)
Continue reading ‘Teaching and learning: Diversity is key’
Dear subscribers and new visitors,
I recently discovered that my comment settings required a “previously approved” comment status, which is why I wasn’t receiving your comments (sorry!). I must have enabled this (by accident) when I relaunched my web presence in August. Apologies to those who emailed to say they were unable to comment here. Thanks again for letting me know about this.
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