HAPPY NEW YEAR 2009!!

Posted by sheffner

January 4, 2009

Originally uploaded by amayzu

Best wishes for the new year.

Here’s a roundup of blogs and websites I’ve been visiting over the break.

The winter break here in Japan starts Jan 1 and this year lasted until today, Sunday 4th. Most schools and businesses restart Monday 5th. If you’d like to read a long-term non-Japanese resident of Japan’s thoughts on what Christmas and New Year are like in Japan, as well as read some in-depth analysis about Japanese society and culture, I recommend Ampontan. I subscribe to just 6 English blogs and news sources for news about Japan, including Ampontan and view them in iGoogle, which allows me to see the 3 latest headlines at a glance and decide whether or not I want to read them (click on the image below to see a larger version):

Japan Economy News & Blog,
Japan Probe – Japanese popular culture, also but not only the weird and wacky (usually includes a video),
Japan Today: Japan news and discussion – slightly more serious and in-depth,
Nikkei News – in English (subscription required), and
BBC News Asia-Pacific headlines.

I watch just 3 sites for UK/World news:

BBC News – front page World edition
BBC News – UK – World edition
Times Higher Education (suscription may be required for some of the articles)

I notice from the BBC UK site that Gordon Brown is “to create 100,000 new jobs”. Homework assignment: compare that item of news with this May 1988 analysis by libertarian economist Walter Block on How the market creates jobs and the government destroys them – in particular, read these two opening paragraphs, then give your opinion:

If the media tell us that “the opening of XYZ mill has created 1,000 new Jobs,” we give a cheer. When the ABC company closes and 500 jobs are lost, we’re sad. The politician who can provide a subsidy to save ABC is almost assured of wide-spread public-support for his work in preserving jobs.

But jobs in and of themselves do not guarantee well-being. Suppose that the employment is to dig huge holes and filll them up again? What if the workers manufacture goods and services that no one wants to purchase? In the Soviet Union, which boasted of giving every worker a job, many jobs were just this unproductive. Production is everything, and jobs are nothing but a means toward that end.

I subscribe to 6 blogs; all are about teaching and learning, and all are in my iGoogle which gives me the headlines and lets me read the content if I hover my mouse over the headline. Very neat: do I want to click and read more, or not? I can make the judgement in the a second.

Digital Ethnography – blog by Michael Wesch, Prof. of Anthropology at Kansas State U and author of a few hugely successful viral videos on YouTube (e.g. The Machine is Us/using Us and A Vision of Students Today), a tool he uses for his research and teaching; Wesch does not blog here very often, but when he does, it’s usually worth reading. Here’s his latest: Participatory Media Literacy – why it matters Money quote: ” We use social media in the classroom not because our students use it, but because we are afraid that social media might be using them – that they are using social media blindly, without recognition of the new challenges and opportunities they might create.”
dougbelshaw.com – blog of a history teacher in the UK who is tech-savvy and using Internet technology in his classes, while working on his Ed.D on media literacy. A highly creative dude, and he’s only 28. I see he’s used his winter break to create a cool new flash page for his site.
elearnr – Doug’s “other” website, a staff development blog. Less active than his main blog, but I follow it because it tells me (the non-geek) about new technology for teachers in words of one-syllable or less.
It Shouldn’t Happen to a Teacher – a young math teacher in the UK. Hilarious.
Recent Reflection – James Atherton’s blog, a (retired?) teacher and teacher-trainer. Blogs about once a week. Always thoughtful and thought-provoking, usually with links to a book or news article that caught his eye. Check out his two main blogs, Doceo and learningandteaching, packed with fascinating essays on teaching and learning, including his sometimes contrarian views on “learning styles” etc.
Schoolgate – (London) Times journalist Sarah Ebner’s blog about what teachers and parents are talking about. The comments are almost always interesting and well-informed. The blog includes links to UK educational news and commentary.

So, three main categories, and a max of 6 blogs in each. That seems to be about what I can handle. Every month or so, I add and delete some blogs or resources, but usually end up with about the same number as before.

Through the writings of Ayn Rand (first the fiction, then the non-fiction), I discovered Austrian economist Friedrich Hayek and eventually the Mises Institute, which is a treasure-trove of essays, blog-posts, and resources on Austrian economics and libertarianism. Although I don’t count myself a convert, I found almost everything on this site to make fascinating, thought-provoking and topical reading. I hadn’t realized economics was so closely allied to ethics and philosophy, nor that all those three fields could be so fascinating. It helps that many of the writers have a strong sense of humour.

announcement, culture and communication, teaching + learning2009, Blogroll, greetings, Japan, New Year

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