Marley & Fresco

I'm really into New Year's Resolutions.

I'm creative while making them and often dedicated in keeping them.  At the end of 2009 I was drafting my anticipated pledges to the new year and my significant other mockingly wrote between the lines:  have great sex, travel a lot, listen to more bob marley.

While he and I broke up, I did keep his last suggested resolution:
Every morning in 2010, minus a few mornings in a rush or under the weather, I listened to Bob Marley.  I remember telling people last year that it has made me a happier person and taught me a lot. 

By listening to Bob Marley every morning, in just one year, I was able to hear almost his entire discography - some many versions of some songs and rare versions of others - and several full-length live concerts available on YouTube.       

At some point in during 2011 I replaced the morning Marley meditation with a ritualistic surf to AJE in the AM:  I started my day with headlines and special reports and breaking news.  I am not exaggerating when I say, I am a  much heavier person to be around than I used to be.  I believe this mild media worship that I've been involved in, like so many of peers, has rendered my spirit a bit out touch.

Eagerly awaiting a new year as someone who loves new year's resolutions might, I have decided I am in need of a new morning mantra or ritual.  Whatever it is, it might need to do with Mr. Jaques Fresco and all the wonderful projects he's dreamed up and designed for a better world.

If you post it on Facebook, tag us so the Ministry of Interior will find it will be the subtitle of a short story I write one day about all the fantastic and quirky couples that I know in cross-nationality relationships. It will end on some epic inquiry into how citizenship has been forever changed by the advent of the internet and one's virtual history.

If you post it on Facebook, tag us so the Ministry of Interior will find it will be the subtitle of a short story I write one day about all the fantastic and quirky couples that I know in cross-nationality relationships.  It will end on some epic inquiry into how citizenship has been forever changed by the advent of the internet and one's virtual history.

At the moment:  I'm AFK for Inside Out in DC, among other exciting things. 

On-going Bibliography

Neuroanthropology Resources
Foundation for Psychocultural Research http://www.thefpr.org/
First official PhD in Neuroanthropology?
http://neuroanthropology.net/conference/
"Social medicine"
Drug Use: Group Habits and Individual Learning
http://neuroanthropology.net/2008/11/14/katherine-mackinnon-capuchins-and-people/
http://www.macalester.edu/psychology/whathap/UBNRP/neuroanth10/Neuroanthropology.html
Discussants Quinn, Sapolski and Strauss...

People Teaching Neuroanthropology
USF  - Daniel Lende
Northwestern University -  Ryan Brown
Northwestern University - Rebecca Seligman
University of Chicago-  Rachel Brezis 
University of Tulsa - Peter Stromberg
Notre Dame -Agustin Fuentes
Saint Andrews - Christina Toren
Miami University in Ohio - Cameron Hay
Purdue - Hal Odden
Macquarie University - Greg Downey


Keywords:  ONLINE PEDAGOGY, THEORY OF CHANGE, EDUCATION REFORM, EDUCATION REVOLUTION, MOOC, COURSERA, ONLINE LEARNING

Daphne Koller & Andrew Ng's  "Log On and Learn: The Promise of Access in Online Education"
Pamela Fox's "Creating Our Coursera Starter Culture"
Claudia Ehrenstein's Does the Internet Make You Dumb?
Steven Smith's The World Wide U
Eliza Collin's Professors Rethink Teaching Methods
Keven Carey's The MOOC-Led Meritocracy
NYT Op-Ed The Trouble With Online Education
Eli Okun's Mixed Reactions

Scope of Inquiry / Can't it be free and valuable?

The moment is approaching when I need to decide if I'm interested in exploring Coursera "in and of itself" as my virtual guide, Tom Boellstorff, did in sl, or in relation to civil space and reality-making.  My desire, of course, is the latter but today's modest perusal of civil society sources presents more than my mind can adequately ponder in the hours not consumed by rl. 























Rather than elaborate, I offer a few thought provoking links and an interesting facebook conversation I came upon  around 'the value' of a 'Coursera certification':

Coursera | More Initial Reactions

Course: Introduction to Sustainability, Week One

- Reviewed all of this week's course material
- Participated actively in a few forums and quizzes
- Researched the team at Coursera working behind the scenes
- Connected with Intro2Sustainability peers in multiple countries

1. I would like to determine what percentage of content my subscriptions exposes me to compared to total available content.  The average user? What information does Coursera track about user behavior? Any publicly available analytic?

2. Questions regarding quality standards, discusdion monitoring...groupthink and traditional critisisms of virtual forums.

3. Coursera facilitates hyperspeed merging of academic interests and the establishment of associations between people whom might otherwise not have met due to a variety of given barriers (institutional, linguistic, class, ethnic, situational, etc.) -- It is doing what study abroad, professional exchange, and international aid are doing, but a gazillion time faster, more equitably, and at a fraction of the cost!

4.  Coursera is a progressive company, not unlike Google, but comparatively, a very small and tech-y team. 

5.  24,000+ students enrolled in #Intro2sustainability !!

6.  Forums, feedback and frustrations! 

Coursera | Day One - Inititial observations

Course: Introduction to Sustainability, Week One
- Logged on, and followed instructor's directions.  I created a profile earlier this week.
- Attended course orientation and took basic quiz.
- Previewed Week 1 material and engaged in discussion forums [project, getting to know your classmates]
- Downloaded and briefly explored course materials
- Used tags to connect with classmates (anthropology, empathy, health, DC, permaculture)

Initial observations/Topics for further reflection

- I began reviewing one of the course texts before joining the virtual community; some of the photos included in it are very interesting! Available to download for free online;  no ability to virtually highlight or mark up the text and burdensome file.

- Coursera is a community with amazing power:  By linking people with common interests, it can bring a comparative or multi-setting dynamic to any existing project or paper, very quickly and with remarkable ease.  By connecting longsince-students with recent graduates on topics of shared interest, it can reinvigorate any discipline.  By proving students separated from their studies - for a variety of rea$ons -  to their missing coursework (or unemployed folk with resources!), it has the potential to create futures.

- I have 24,000+ classmates.

- I have already connected with someone across the ocean with whom I share specific interests and relatively close proximity in social networks.

- I imagine some people will use this as a venue to engage in when in search of a compatible mate.  Any "We met at Coursera" wedding stories to date?

- Tompkins course is very well-designed and highly customizable.  Wonder how it compares to other Coursera courses and how it has changed over time?

- Connections to the twitterverse and links to Facebook; use of tags, formatting and hyperlinks in posts.

Coursera time logged:  Approx. 3 hours and wishing I could wrap my mind around all this but have to log off! #bummer.

Tiger Woods Syndrome, Part One

Today I found myself wandering the aisles of Walmart in search of wooden skewers for my niece's upcoming birthday barbeque and in my suburban directionless I stumbled upon a bin of bargain books.  One caught my eye:

I found the title somewhat absurd, shared my sentiments with my significant other using the instant gratification of The Smart Phone and carried on my way.

Later I thought to myself, what exactly is the Tiger Woods Syndrome anyway?  Upon googleing, I found an article at Psychology Today entitled with those exact words,  which explains:

"Tiger Woods Syndrome is a five stage pattern  where the man subverts his needs, feelings and goals to accommodate his mate's to obtain the goal of a romantic relationship.  In the artificial intimacy stage, physical attraction and charm is emphasized over compatibility to begin the romance. In the second stage, approval seeking is used to meet his partner's many needs and desires at the expense of his own to keep the momentum of the relationship rolling. In the critical third stage, the man must choose between his old life (usually represented by his friends), and the new lover. In the fourth stage, both partners indulge themselves in idealized views of each other in the Honeymoon. Finally, in the fifth stage, both parthers  eventually make peace with the fact that the reasons they had come together were myths. The deceptive relationship often results in two disappointed partners."

(No offense to the authors, especially given I haven't read the book but) Wow, I thought, aren't those the same five stages most poorly-maintained relationships take? What makes this a 'syndrome' as opposed to a reality?  It's like saying someone has a 'condition' when they are fat because they don't exercise and eat crap food. That's lazy, not sick.  The Tiger Woods Syndrome is a catchy name for a book about why people who don't maintain relationships will find themselves cheated upon, disappointed and alone.  [more to come on this topic later, because I have a very colorful alternative explanation for the Tiger Woods Syndrome ;)]

a brief update

No longer anchored, but staying around for a little while. 

http://atlasne.blogspot.com/

Ancored

and in the weeds.

defining elsewhere

when the travel itch kicks in and yet can’t be subdued, it’s said the scratch of a pen can ease wanderlust. and so i return to this dusty old blog, as i tend to do between seasons and sojourns, to scribble out something that makes messy seem glamourous and restlessness appear admirable.

Fall arrived today. Walked out my door this morning and BAM! there it was - filling my nostrils, caressing my cheeks, teasing me with a comfortable cool. Autumn shouldn’t be trusted. She brings all sorts of beginnings -- freshly-sharpened pencils and new semesters, sweater sales and crisp breezes -- but after a fleeting fall romance leaves you cold, frumpy and wondering what happen to all those daylight hours. Like any heartbreak, though, she should be embraced and appreciated to her fullest while it lasts. So bring it on, autumn, your holiday parties and all.

Like a squirrel, I’m using autumn to gather, horde and plot. But instead of collecting nuts or fluffing my drey, I’m taking inventory of loose ends and stringing them together as resourcefully as I can. Not sure where the countdown is leading, but the countdown is on. Like a boat person string-together plastic bottles, I’m hoping the wreckage of my transition back to the US will craft a fantastic mode of transportation to elsewhere. And against which moderately-temperatured climate does my escapist fantasy play out this year? The usual suspects, of course: Cairo, Tokyo, Southern California... New obsessions, too: Tel Aviv, a hodgepodge of less developed island countries, Costa Rica. Some criteria are essential: coastline, access to fresh fruits or vegetables, cash-based economy. Suggestions welcomed. Bonus points for proximity to the equator and ability to wear skirts.