why shakespeare (still) rocks

It's not just that he wrote better than all of us combined.  It's that he managed, somehow, to make iambic pentameter sing such basic truths that they are just as important to everything we care about today, half a millennium after he lived.  For example: What's in a name?

is this you?

I am a member of Generation X, which became well-known largely because of Douglas Coupland's book--which I will compare in class with Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales--and the ongoing desire of our culture's marketing department to brand us all.  (You should be aware that some of the things people assume to be "reality" are actually just clever descriptions of things that may or may not exist.  For example, the concept of "red and blue" states is only fourteen years old.)

I bring this up because my fellow Gen X'ers and I used to ridicule the way older adults described us in the media.  Sure, some members of every generation are flannel-wearing, pot-smoking slackers with McJobs, but my friends and I were generally hard-charging athletes and intellectuals who competed for the Yuppified American Dream.  I earned a Ph.D. and started a consulting firm by the time I was 27.  My classmates became doctors, lawyers, political commentators, economists--one even became a champion on Jeopardy.  One of the reasons you don't hear any more complaining about Generation X in the media is that we're the ones running the media.  So, the generational story has become the Millenials' problem-- after all, they're narcissistic slackers with crappy music and no goals (or they're not, and unfairly maligned in the same way we were). 

But wait a second: What is this?  Generation Z is not being saddled with the same old stereotypes adults usually ascribe to "teenagers" (the term itself is a modern invention).  In fact, this article suggests that your generation is going to save us all.

I'm always curious how the subjects of media reports evaluate their accuracy, so please comment to this post with your thoughts.  Now that the Greatest Generation, the Baby Boomers, and even Generation X have screwed the world up beyond belief, are you the people who can set things right?

why plagiarism is about the stupidest thing you can do in today's world (II)

I don't make this stuff up (or steal it from other authors without attribution).  Here is the link to the full article.

I am a huge fan of researching and remixing others' ideas and creations into original work.  I do it myself.  But too many people misunderstand the boundaries between ethical attribution and ripping others off to make themselves look good.  My freshman year R.A. at UCLA had a sign on her door with this Wilson Mizner quote: If you steal from one author it's plagiarism; if you steal from many it's research.  That's a witty line, but it's not accurate.  This year we'll spend some time this year with digital fair use experts and university administrators figuring out how you can make the most effective use of everything you can find without stepping over the line.

why plagiarism is about the stupidest thing you can do in today's world

Students at all levels are tempted to take shortcuts.  You have a massive "to-do" list this year and you are provided with incentives for grades, not work process or integrity.

The problem, of course, is that we live in an era of transparency.  The idea behind using blogs is to create maximal value-- if you can send someone a link to your work, they can see for themselves how brilliant you are and reward you accordingly.  This value is hard won.  Since every author's work is available for all to see, it must stand the tests of inquiry and critique.  Or, as in the case of Senator John Walsh, it causes readers to think the author is the sort of person who steals work from other people and calls it his own.

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Mamihlapinatapai

Mamihlapinatapai is my new favorite word.  I had no idea it existed until yesterday, when I found it while looking for a better way to describe "a person who goes first" as I was writing about Lupita's and Erica's blogs.

According to the 1994 Guinness World Book of Records (not my usual source for definitions except when discussing "the world's most succinct word"), Mamihlapinatapai means, "a look shared by two people, each wishing that the other will offer something that they both desire but are unwilling to suggest or offer themselves."  It comes from the Yaghan language of Tierra del Fuego, which is spoken by exactly one remaining native speaker. 
 
Since I can personally guarantee that Mamihlapinatapai will never appear on the AP English Literature & Composition exam, why is any of this important to us?
 
Because it reminds us that we humans are immensely creative in identifying and describing abstract concepts that are important to our understanding, whether the terms we use appear in textbooks or not.  I am absolutely fascinated by the fact that a tiny electrical charge in the gray blob between my ears somehow leads me to experience a thought which can move my muscles to disturb the air in front of me or bang on this keyboard in such a way that you'll experience a tiny electrical charge in your gray blob.  Over thousands of years, people in every culture have explained this and other mysteries by inventing terms and languages (using words, sounds, numbers, pictorial symbols) that tell stories and use metaphors.  Think about how we describe the Internet-- which most of us don't understand very well-- as real estate ("web sites"), or plumbing ("pipes"), or transportation ("information superhighway"), etc.
 
We are losing elements of our natural world and the cultures that enable us to convey meaning to each other, and we are losing the ability to define and share reality for ourselves.  What happens to Mamihlapinatapai when Cristina Calderon and the handful of people who understand her die?  The next time you sit down to write an essay, ask yourself: Am I completing a meaningless exercise for a grade, or am I-- in the spirit of Montaigne-- trying to express my innermost thinking in a way another human being can understand?  
 
Whether or not Mamihlapinatapai survives as a word, and to whatever extent we communicate effectively with each other, the concept it represents will most certainly survive as a phenomenon we experience in the world.  Mamihlapinatapai is what happens in every classroom on every first day of school in those moments when teachers and students stare at each other, past the familiar clichés, pep talks and false promises, silently pleading with each other to take the first steps beyond talk, hoping that this time there will be something different, something more...

way to go lupita and erica!

Thanks to Lupita Pliego and Erica Paculan for being the first members of the 2014-2015 cohort to put up their blogs!

Over the last couple days Lupita and I exchanged emails in which we clarified the terms we use to describe what we're doing on the Internet.  Since most of this is new to most of us, it's worth noting here that the word blog developed from "web log" in the late 1990s, and generally refers to a site that includes a series of posts from one or more authors.  Blog topics range from personal diaries to hobbies to newspaper-y feeds of current events.  I use blogs as our starting point for a few reasons:

1. Blogs are easy to create and use.  I have watched toddlers and grandparents create blogs in seconds.   
2. Blogs are personal and customizable.  This ain't no three-ring binder.  Your blog says more about your thinking than a piece of paper ever could.  The colors, the design, the layout, the features you select, and the content you post provide your readers insight into your creativity, your personality, your critical thinking, and your ability to collaborate.  (NOTE: This also gives you the opportunity to create a competitive advantage-- while other applicants have to tell potential employers and scholarship/admissions committees what they've done, you can show your accomplishments.)
3. Blogs can include a variety of media that effectively convey your ideas.  Sometimes a picture-- or a mindmap, or a video, or a .gif, or an animation, or a [?]-- is worth a thousand words.
4. Blogs are a virtual base of operations that create value.  As you learn more about the Internet's culture and business models this year, you will come to realize how important it is for you to tell your own story.  Beyond the purpose/s of our study, you can create blogs for any purpose you like.  Maintaining a blog will teach you how to manage your own identity and share your interests & achievements in a way that creates value for yourself and others.  When someone searches your name you want them to find something more impressive than a pre-teen rant or party picture.
5. Blogs demonstrate the ultimate in trust and accountability.  This may be the most important factor in our work together.  When I started Open Source Learning it was very unusual for a teacher to allow students to use the public Internet.  Although more and more teachers have warmed to the idea, there is still a heavy temptation to dictate what students can and cannot do, instead of giving students the freedom to be truly accountable for their own performance.  We will be talking a lot about this in the first couple weeks of class; in the meantime, have a look at WHY TRUST MATTERS IN CONNECTED LEARNING ENVIRONMENTS.