The internet is no longer a new thing, and with the explosion in internet traffic and most recently, social networking media — the pace at which data about everything circulates amongst everyone is faster than ever before. The internet is a powerful medium for exchanging information, and as Carol MacKnight writes for EDUCAUSE, is a perfect tool for education and encouraging learning and critical thinking:
Online communication offers the potential for collaboration as well as increased participation in the learning process, reflection, peer tutoring, monitoring of student learning as it is taking place, and extension of the classroom learning.
Online forums, internet blogs (such as this), and social networking sites provide the venue for discussing ideas, debating arguments, and promoting advocacies. It does not come without a price though: the more information at the disposal of users, the more it demands from the users of that information. MacKnight is quick to point out (bold emphasis mine):
However, online communication puts emphasis on students’ comprehension and knowledge of the elements of an argument and thus on how to interact with ideas and each other in a meaningful way. We cannot assume that all students will come with sufficient critical thinking skills to advance an online discussion, nor can we assume that faculty have sufficient skills and practice in monitoring discussions or skills in creating productive communities of online learners. Both may need support and training.
Read the rest of MacKnight’s insightful article here.
Meantime, we join Carol MacKnight’s call in supporting and promoting critical thinking online as a tool for education.
An update from Nielsen reporting on internet usage trends:
Currently, three quarters of Internet users worldwide visit a social network or blog when they go online — that’s a 24% increase over last year.
Joe Average (the international version) spends 66% more time on these sites than he did a year ago — for example, your average user spent 6 hours on these sites in April 2010, while last year he spent 3 hours, 31 minutes.
Facebook, YouTube and Wikipedia make an appearance among the world’s most popular brands.
Italy’s Catholics are asked to stop texting, silence iPods, stay offline during Lent By ARIEL DAVID, Associated Press Writer
10:37 AM PST, March 4, 2009
ROME (AP) — Roman Catholic bishops in Italy are urging the faithful to go on a high-tech fast for Lent, switching off modern appliances from cars to iPods and abstaining from surfing the Web or text messaging until Easter.
The suggestion goes far beyond no-meat Fridays, giving a modern twist to traditional forms of abstinence in the five-week period Christians set aside for fasting and prayer ahead of Easter.
And it shows the Church’s increasing focus on technology’s uses — with many of the Lenten appeals posted on various dioceses’ Web sites.
Remember a while back, the Vatican released a new list of mortal sins. This is just a reminder that as the world changes, so do its religions, morals, and ethics–all of them being man-made social structures.
No matter how constant ideas seem to be today, how these structures evolve and what they will evolve into, are totally unpredictable. For instance, I wonder how people’s idea of worship will be when man starts migrating to space? Or when we start growing new organs from stem cells? Or when intelligent robots become our laborers?
Exponential times call for exponential philosophy.
Our favorite skeptical empiricist Nassim Taleb is interviewed by financial journalist, Consuelo Mack, where he shared his insights about history and rare events. He provides a definition of his most popular phrase “The Black Swan” which he uses to describe rare, unpredictable events that have unexpectedly large and widespread consequences for society. He cites as examples: The World Wars, the rise of the internet, Google, and stock market crashes. All these events were unexpected and unpredictable but had tremendous consequences for society after they happened.
He continues to explain that some fields and areas are more prone to Black Swans than others, in this case: economics, finance, technology, and history. Taleb describes how people in general do not understand the impact of rare events on their lives.
Here is the new Pointman Cebu Rogue’s Gallery, our our very own Scam Artists Central. These are girls, without a doubt, who have proven themselves to be scam artists, by meeting up with a possible (and genuine) mate online, and then kindly separating these unsuspecting, and sometimes a bit naive folks from their money.
The reason we have listed these girls here, rather than on the “Cases” page, is due to the fact that we have obtained large amounts of additional proof from various different government agencies (and other reliable sources), in order to prove true intent to scam our clients, on their part. These are more “professional” scammers, than the typical cases we have conducted, and have placed on our cases page.
Additionally, these scam artists are helping to destroy the faith others have in people throughout the world. When you meet someone online, and you are a genuine person in your heart, it is a horrible thing to be used by the person on the other end of your internet connection. You feel in your heart, they are the “one” for you. However, the only “one” in their minds, are the “one-hundreds” they can steal from you.
A lot of Filipina scammers don’t need fancy computer skills to spam foreigners, all they need really is to chat with them and concoct of some fake sob story.
I gave her money before i met her, she told me how she did not eat very good food, so I wanted her and her son to eat better. Then her “bad luck” started, I will try and list the problems she had.
Her son got a kidney infection. Hospital stay and medication. She got dengue fever. hospital stay and medication. Because she was sick and in the hospital she fell behind on rent, 2500php for the room.
By this time I was a walking ATM machine with bi weekly withdraws.
My visit was from October 5 to 14, it was after that she would have an emergency every week. Her veggie stand was broke into and they stole all her capital. Of course I’ll help you, you love me.
<Her son> needs English lessons @ 4000php a month (full time wage for part time teaching). She got evicted from her room, so i agreed to rent her a house for 5000php a month. I had to furnish the house, dining table chairs, couch, TV, queen bed, air-con for bedroom refrigerator. I think i gave her over $1000 just for this.
Overnight trip to CDO to get her birth certificate. Lies I am sure. While in CDO at her aunts house, the mp3 player I got for her is stolen. <Her son> gets bit by a dog. Rabies shots that cost way too much. 3, then 4 of them.
Her Lolo is sick and in hospital, he can pay all but 8000php of his bill, lolo will pay me back in January when he sells a lot in town.
Her trip to Cebu is where she got robbed.
It is really such a pity when Filipinas resort to such things. To think, sometimes the amount they ask is practically loose change from a foreigner. If I were a foreigner or even a Filipino living abroad, I really wouldn’t mind helping out a poor Filipina who keeps me company over the webcam regularly to relieve me from my problems and stress. And no, I will not ask sex from her.
Check this sidebar for RSS-feeds from selected blogs from our blogroll. We change this selection from time to time to sample critical thinking from across the blogosphere.
The Critical Thinker(tm) 