What are you reading, watching, thinking about this week? As usual, here’s a few which have been on our mind. Let us know your thoughts on any/all of them. If you have items you’d like us to consider for the top five, add them in the comments or send them to Tom or Mike.
1. In the last Week in Review we kicked off with highlighting Seth Godin’s take on the coming melt-down in higher education. Since then, the Chronicle of Higher Education thought Godin’s piece was worth posting. That action, along with the material from the article, has created conversation worth consideration, visit here. I [Tom] think it is helpful to note that the meltdown is “as seen by a marketer” and the “facts” are told the way a marketer tells the “facts.” Bigger questions: What is the End of Education? How are followers of Christ salt and light in higher education, even advocating, developing, and maintaining structures (not just in the Council for Christian Colleges & Universities) which truly educate to the glory of God, making the small list of redemptive outliers instead of the mass of marketers selling their wares?
2. A School Pushing Back Against Facebook (Mark Bauerlein, Chronicle of Higher Education, 5/2010) brings to mind the question of How should educators interact with Social Media and teach students to handle Social Media? I [Tom] think that phenomena such as Soical Media, e.g., Facebook and Twitter, are too much of a larger cultural issue for educators to address alone. Educators should be finding ways to dialogue with children, parents, community leaders, and Social Media advocates/leaders to wisely discern it’s proper place, use, parameters. Those in the nonprofit and ministry sector have much to offer. Note: Jon Boyd has an excellent handout on Mistakes You Can Avoid on Facebook and Twitter for people in the nonprofit and ministry sector. [Read more…] about Week in Review: Why Can’t We Be Friends? Edition