Don’t Merely View TV, Watch TV


A segment of the Travel Channel’s popular “No Reservations” show, with Anthony Bourdain Anthony Bourdain clearly has one of the best jobs ever. Travel. Meet. Eat. Drink. Swear. Sleep off the gluttony-induced euphoria and repeat. Bourdain’ shows are brilliant in both content and message: learn about people by talking to them, share their lives through…

King Leopold’s Ghost: A Book Rant


“King Leopold’s Ghost, A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa;” by Adam Hochschild; Houghton-Miflin Company; 1998. ISBN 9780618001903. $15. Adam might have titled his book, a National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist, “E.D Morel, One Man’s Heroic Effort to Bring Down A King And Shame Western Society.” Hochschild’s history of colonial Belgian…

The Future of Educational Technology: The Conundrum of Tablets, PCs, Smartphones, and the Cloud


My discipline lives and breathes by technology. Personal computers helped revive the discipline of Geography beginning in the 1990’s. Along with rapid advancements in personal computer technology came application development environments such as Microsoft’s Visual Studio. Several companies were poised to avail themselves to rapid changes in personal computing technologies, Environmental Systems Research Institute (ESRI),…

Do Professors Work Hard Enough? A Rebuttal


March 27th, 2012 the Washington Post published an opinion/editorial by David C. Levy. Mr. Levy opined rising tuition cots are a function of a broken employment policy system within Higher Education. On the one hand, Mr. Levy attempted to assuage fears of gross misconduct across the higher education by suggesting few faculty were not working…

Destroy the Box


Someone, please, help me confirm the foundations of higher education. What is the basic purpose of higher education? And, if someone says, “to help me get a job,” I’m going to scream. Successful acquisition of employment is a by-product of higher education, not the answer I am looking for. Three-and-a-half to five years spent obtaining…

Not All You Read on the Internet Is True


I read an article recently about the difficulties of choosing digital content in K-12 education. I think the article was miss-titled. The author didn’t really discuss choosing digital content, more about managing digital content. But the author’s comments did spur some thoughts of my own. K-12 education may have some special issues related to digital…

Every Course Should Be Holistic


Without ever having taken an education class, I suspect the over-arching theme of all education course is the training of a person to help him/her learn techniques they can use to help a child become “self-actualized” – to become all they can be. I had an interesting conversation with my neighbor yesterday. As many of…