A Teacher Librarian from South Carolina on LM_NET reviewed Nicholas Carr's book
The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains. She states, "It
explains in understandable terms the brain research that has revealed the
plasticity of our brains and the subtle effect computer and internet use
have on the way the human brain functions. By comparison, it explains how
'the book' altered the brains of our predecessors as did other 'intellectual tools'
like the map and the clock. While the author isn't sounding the warning that we are losing our minds as we allow the computer (internet) to
take over many of our search/research decisions, he does make clear that
we need to carefully evaluate this 'tool' and use it wisely.
We alter the chemical flows in our synapses and change our brains. And when we
hand down our habits of thought to our children, through the examples we set,
the schooling we provide, and the media we use, we hand down as well the modifications
in the structure of our brains.
By freeing us from the struggle of decoding text, the form that writing came to
take on a page of parchment or paper enabled us to become deep readers, to
turn our attention, and our brain power, to the interpretation of meaning.
With writing on the screen...we read if anything faster than ever but we
are no longer guided toward a deep personally constructed understanding of
the text's connotations. Instead we're hurried off toward another bit of
related information and then another and another. The strip-mining of
'relevant content' replaces the slow excavation of meaning...the more we use
the web, the more we train our brain to be distracted--to process information
very quickly and very efficiently but without sustained attention. Our brains
become adept at forgetting, inept at remembering."
Sometimes the hardest solution is the one that sits on the edge of consciousness. It sits in plain view but just out of reach when one strives fervently to grasp it. It is like a single breath. Simple, yet elusive to those who pursue it with dogged persistance. Shall we not let life just be? To linger, evolve, create, metamorph to the solution that we so crave.
New favorite word: dross. Replaces my other favorite word: lotus eaters.
Spring babies, summer youths, fall adults, winter oldies. As we age do we become more like the seasons we are compared to? I thought when I retired I would love to sit carefree on a beach, a dream I've had since sunbathing on a white sandy beach in Caesarea in my early twenties. Nothing could be closer to heaven than that moment. Now as old age peeks at me around the corner, I find that a cozy chair next to a warm fire while the snow falls outside seems more appealing. When did that change?
Good Friday is a time to think about kindness. Kindness is when a soldier put a moistened sponge on a stalk to wet the lips of a dying man. Kindness is sitting in the dirt as you wait for someone to die because you know your presence is important to them. Kindness is giving up your burial tomb for a stranger and his family because they have no place to bury their loved one.
W. Bruce Cameron's novel A Dog's Purpose: A Novel for Humans follows the lives of one dog as it tries to understand the purpose of its being. As readers we circle back to the meaning of Bailey's life whose sole purpose was to unequivocally love and protect his boy. Each life gave the dog a lesson that followed him into the next life which ultimately brings him back to the fulfillment of his purpose.
Book Review: Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother by Amy Chua
A Teacher Librarian from South Carolina on LM_NET reviewed Nicholas Carr's book The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains. She states, "It explains in understandable terms the brain research that has revealed the plasticity of our brains and the subtle effect computer and internet use have on the way the human brain functions. By comparison, it explains how 'the book' altered the brains of our predecessors as did other 'intellectual tools' like the map and the clock. While the author isn't sounding the warning that we are losing our minds as we allow the computer (internet) to take over many of our search/research decisions, he does make clear that we need to carefully evaluate this 'tool' and use it wisely. We alter the chemical flows in our synapses and change our brains. And when we hand down our habits of thought to our children, through the examples we set, the schooling we provide, and the media we use, we hand down as well the modifications in the structure of our brains.
Ben's question #14 to his Leather Apron Club. "Have you lately observed any defect in the laws of your country, of which it would be proper to move the legislature an amendment? Or do you know of any beneficial law that is wanting?"
I am trying to wrap my head around why I need to set up a Personal Learning Network since it basically is in my head. Therefore, I am not sure what benefits constructing a graphic representation of my networking process will have. Will it make me see the process more clearly? Will it help me focus on interconnecting links? It seems rather innate at this point but I am open to experimenting with it. Thus the PLN gadget is located on the right.
