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Scott Walters

On Campus, Vampires Are Besting the Beats - washingtonpost.com - 0 views

www.washingtonpost.com/...AR2009030501541.html

shared by Scott Walters on 09 Mar 09 - Cached
  • Here we have a generation of young adults away from home for the first time, free to enjoy the most experimental period of their lives, yet they're choosing books like 13-year-old girls -- or their parents. The only specter haunting the groves of American academe seems to be suburban contentment.
  • two-thirds of freshmen identify themselves as "middle of the road" or "conservative." Such people aren't likely to stay up late at night arguing about Mary Daly's "Gyn/Ecology" or even Robert Pirsig's "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance."
  • "I have stood before classes," he tells me, "and seen the students snicker when I said that Melville died poor because he couldn't sell books. 'Then why are we reading him if he wasn't popular?' "
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • a notable uptick in superficiality and a notable uptick in the anesthetizing of that native curiosity that was once a prominent feature of the adolescent mind."
  • maybe young people's reading choices reflect our desire to keep them young
  • "People don't necessarily read their politics nowadays. They get it through YouTube and blogs and social networks. I don't know that there is a fiction writer out there right now who speaks to this generation's political ambitions. We're still waiting for our Kerouac."
  • "Don't trust anyone over 140 characters."
Ed Webb

Look! Look! That's me at SCBWI! | Making It Up - 0 views

www.francescaamendolia.com/...look-look-thats-me-at-scbwi

opinion Bruce Hale

shared by Ed Webb on 10 Feb 09 - Cached
  • this rather sobering reflection on the state of education today from Richard Peck: You can teach children, or you can fear their parents, but you can’t do both. So true. When teachers pander to parents, children lose. They become spoiled, weak, vain, self-indulgent. Parents can’t always demand enough from their children — we are too close, too sympathetic. A good teacher will take a child and force them to do better than they thought they could. And it will cost the child. It will be hard. It will make them work, think, cry even. But it will make them grow.
  • Ed Webb on 10 Feb 09
     
    Food for thought
April Johnson

Defining Active Learning | Faculty Focus - 40 views

www.facultyfocus.com/...defining-active-learning

learning engagement

shared by April Johnson on 09 Feb 11 - No Cached
  • Most faculty know that active learning is important even though many still lecture pretty much exclusively.
  • Steve Ransom on 09 Feb 11
     
    Words Matter: "The process of having students engage in some activity that forces them to reflect upon ideas and how they are using those ideas. Requiring students to regularly assess their own degree of understanding and skill at handling concepts or problems in a particular discipline. The attainment of knowledge by participating or contributing. The process of keeping students mentally, and often physically, active in their learning through activities that involve them in gathering information, thinking and problem solving."
  • April Johnson on 11 Feb 11
     
    This has interesting points about active learning!
Deborah Baillesderr

CAST: Center for Applied Special Technology - 117 views

www.cast.org

udl education technology teaching learning cast

shared by Deborah Baillesderr on 15 Mar 11 - Cached
  • Denise Whiteman on 15 Mar 11
     
    WOW! Free tools related to literacy skills. The book builder tool has a section which reads a story (here's a link for "A Tortoise and a Hare") - They offer professional development and multimedia learning tools. ....."A Tortoise and a Hare" - just this one book offers an amazing variety of learning tools including: activating background knowledge, self assessment and reflection, collaboration and communication, action and expression, coping skills and strategies, challenge and support, recruiting interest, goal-centered learning, and designing flexible curriculum. Each of these skills has a specific activity within the story to address it (almost every page has a different one!). Every page also has a question to think about and respond to. At the end it discusses the moral in another activity and the story itself offers extension activities for follow-up. The story is read by a young girl, but there is also a text reader built in, a glossary, and word-by-word English/Spanish translations.
  • ...1 more comment...
  • msovoice on 16 Mar 11
     
    This is great. Good for educators, parents, and students. The book builder thing is cool!
  • Mark Trerotola on 22 May 12
     
    An educational research & development organization that works to expand learning opportunities for all individuals through Universal Design for Learning.
  • Marc Patton on 02 Mar 13
     
    CAST is an educational research & development organization that works to expand learning opportunities for all individuals through Universal Design for Learning.
Javier E

The Decline of Final Exams - NYTimes.com - 52 views

ideas.blogs.nytimes.com/...the-decline-of-final-exams

testing education university learning assessment

shared by Javier E on 19 May 11 - No Cached
  • Keith O’Brien surveys a national decline in final exams, reflected at Harvard, where fewer than a quarter of the undergraduate courses scheduled the tests in the spring term last year.
  • There’s nothing magical about finals, Bangert-Drowns added. They can be arbitrary and abstract — an inauthentic gauge of what someone knows.
  • many still find value in the final exam. It might be stressful, even terrifying, but it has the singular power to force students to go back over material, think critically about what they have read, review hard-to-grasp-topics once more, and even talk about the subject matter with classmates and instructors — all of which enhance learning.
Keith Rowley

Harvard Working Knowledge: Why Leaders Lose Their Way - Bill George - 1 views

www.billgeorge.org/...dge-why-leaders-lose-their-way

leadership meditation work career business

shared by Keith Rowley on 20 Jun 11 - No Cached
  • Leaders who lose their way are not bad people; rather, they lose their moral bearings
  • we all have the capacity for actions we deeply regret unless we stay grounded.
  • Self-reflection: a path to leadership development
  • ...16 more annotations...
  • narcissistic wounds from childhood.
    • Keith Rowley
      Keith Rowley on 20 Jun 11
       
      Their "crucibles." Or, as Eckhard Tolle calls it, "pain bodies".
  • What's the purpose of my leadership?
  • Why do I want to lead?
  • Often they reject the honest critic who speaks truth to power.
  • these problems are neither their fault nor their responsibility. Or they look for scapegoats to blame for their problems. Using their power, charisma, and communications skills, they force people to accept these distortions, causing entire organizations to lose touch with reality. At this stage leaders are vulnerable to making big mistakes, such as violating the law or putting their organizations' existence at risk. Their distortions convince them they are doing nothing wrong, or they rationalize that their deviations are acceptable to achieve a greater good.
    • Keith Rowley
      Keith Rowley on 20 Jun 11
       
      George W Bush!
  • Values-centered leadership
  • Leaders can avoid these pitfalls by devoting themselves to personal development that cultivates their inner compass, or True North. This requires reframing their leadership from being heroes to beingservants of the people they lead.
  • reframing their leadership from being heroes to beingservants of the people they lead.
    • Keith Rowley
      Keith Rowley on 20 Jun 11
       
      Values-centerd leaders are "Go-Givers"
  • Leaders can avoid these pitfalls by devoting themselves to personal development that cultivates their inner compass, or True North.
  • discipline
    • Keith Rowley
      Keith Rowley on 20 Jun 11
       
      Meditation is a good discipline to practice.
  • meditation
  • A system to support values-centered leadership The reality is that people cannot stay grounded by themselves. Leaders depend on people closest to them to stay centered. They should seek out people who influence them in profound ways and stay connected to them. Often their spouse or partner knows them best.
  • heir choices don't matter, as long as they relieve stress and enable them to think clearly about work and personal issues.
  • Spouses and partners can't carry this entire burden though. We need mentors
  • rue North Groups
    • Keith Rowley
      Keith Rowley on 20 Jun 11
       
      What is this???
  • Surround yourselves with people who will be honest with you about how you really are and what you are becoming, and then make them promise to not hold back… from telling you the truth."
  • Keith Rowley on 20 Jun 11
     
    Values-centered leadership. Bill George is great!
Garth Holman

Garth Holman & Mike Pennington        Two middle school teachers        Imple... - 63 views

www.teachersfortomorrow.net

blog holman edtech

shared by Garth Holman on 03 Sep 11 - Cached
  • Garth, Steph and I are currently listening to Alan November speak at a technology conference at Bowling Green State University.  He started with a question: "what is the most important skill we should be teaching students?".  Alan then said thathat the president of HSBC, West Point University and a college professor all said that it should be EMPATHY.  Interesting talk Mr. November is giving about all the ways we, as teachers, should be using technology, but he is very pessimistic about teachers changing, giving students more control and bringing social networking into the classroom.  Great talking points, lots to think about.  More from the road as it occurs.
  • I read Harry Wong's First Days of School years ago.  I bought in to his ideas on teaching rules and procedures for the first days of school.  However, doing that on the first day of school made me just like everyone else.  That is not me, I am not everyone else.  I stand at the door and greet my students.  At th
A Gardner

Unconference: Revolutionary professional learning | Powerful Learning Practice - 136 views

plpnetwork.com/...utionary-professional-learning

teacher professionallearning unconference edcamp instruction

shared by A Gardner on 04 Apr 11 - No Cached
  • Unconferences matter because they harness the power of authentic learning.
  • as adults we are so unused to seeing democratic, generative thinking, live, in action.
    • A Gardner
      A Gardner on 18 Apr 11
       
      Our teaching should reflect our learning
  • moving from expert-driven learning to self-authorized learning.
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • expert voices are already among us.
  • ifferentiation is as important for adults
  • adult learning occurs when it is personal, social and voluntary
A Gardner

The Teaching Profession Must Police Itself | Reflections of a Math Teacher Candidate - 44 views

mathequality.wordpress.com/...-profession-must-police-itself

teaching profession blog

shared by A Gardner on 01 May 11 - No Cached
  • how can teachers be assessed fairly to make sure they perform their duties competently?
  • teachers must propose some method to police our own
  • A deeper question to me is, how are lawyers, doctors, and other professionals judged?
  • A Gardner on 01 May 11
     
    If a student improves, learns, and progresses beyond where he/she was when they entered my class, yet remains below "proficient," I am to receive a failing grade. I think success needs redefined.
Matt Renwick

Project-Based Learning Through a Maker's Lens | Edutopia - 43 views

www.edutopia.org/...h-a-makers-lens-patrick-waters

learning maker lens edutopia

shared by Matt Renwick on 11 Jul 14 - No Cached
  • Choosing, thinking, reflecting, and sorting possible projects should be a career-long process. Good projects don't fade with time -- they get richer and more exciting for both teacher and student.
  • Great projects, on the other hand, are opportunities for learners and teachers to collaborate with those around them.
Nigel Coutts

Encouraging Metacognition for Learning - 89 views

thelearnersway.net/...ing-metacognition-for-learning

learning thinking metacognition

shared by Nigel Coutts on 21 Jun 15 - No Cached
  • Nigel Coutts on 21 Jun 15
     
    A critical component of learning is the ability to reflect on one's learning and the processes that occur while we are engaged in learning. If we are to develop independent, empowered learners then we need to build the skills required for metacognition both directly through the provision of suitable strategies and indirectly via the modeling of effective learning that we provide.
Kimberly DeSandre

My Digital Portfolio Project Planning. - 53 views

blog.williamferriter.com/...tal-portfolio-project-planning

shared by Kimberly DeSandre on 19 Apr 17 - No Cached
  • Chema Falcó on 19 Apr 17
     
    ideas y recursos para crear un portafolio de aprendizaje
  • Kimberly DeSandre on 20 Apr 17
     
    Over the last year, I've been working on a committee in my school district to think about the role that digital portfolios can play in helping students to document their learning. I LOVE that our district is committed to the idea of portfolios simply because they promote more reflective learners and help our schools to move from a culture of grading to a culture of feedback.
meghankelly492

Project MUSE - Learning from Masters of Music Creativity: Shaping Compositional Experie... - 7 views

muse.jhu.edu/224140

world Music

shared by meghankelly492 on 22 Jul 19 - No Cached
  • n contrast to others who are not as prone to divulge their feelings about their creative process
  • "Variation in style may have historical explanation but [End Page 94] no philosophical justification, for philosophy cannot discriminate between style and style."3
  • The testimonies of the composers concerned bear on questions about (a) the role of the conscious and the unconscious in music creativity, (b) how the compositional process gets started, and (c) how the compositional process moves forward
  • ...39 more annotations...
  • It is hoped that the themes that emerge by setting twentieth and twenty-first century professional composers' accounts of certain compositional experiences or phases of their creative processes against one another will provide a philosophical framework for teaching composition.
  • Furthermore, the knowledge of how professional composers compose offers the potential of finding the missing link in music education; that is, the writing of music by students within the school curriculum
  • Such involvement may deepen their understanding of musical relationships and how one articulates feelings through sounds beyond rudimentary improvisational and creative activities currently available
  • raw philosophical implications for music composition in schools from recognized composers' voices about their individual composing realities
  • It is hoped that the direct access to these composers' thoughts about the subjective experience of composing Western art music in the second half of the twentieth and the beginning of the twenty-first century may also promote the image of a fragmented culture whose ghettoization in music education is a serious impediment to the development of a comprehensive aesthetic education.
  • n other words, there is a striking unanimity among composers that the role of the unconscious is vital in order to start and/or to complete a work to their own satisfaction.
  • I need . . . to become involved, to come into a state where I do something without knowing why I do i
  • This is a complex problem and difficult to explain: all that one can say is that the unconscious plays an incalculable rol
  • Nonetheless, these self-observations about the complementary roles of the unconscious and conscious aspects of musical creativity do not cover the wide range of claims in psychological research on creativity
  • I strongly believe that, if we cannot explain this process, then we must acknowledge it as a mystery.25 Mysteries are not solved by encouraging us not to declare them to be mysteries
  • When Ligeti was commissioned to write a companion piece for Brahms' Horn Trio, he declared, "When the sound of an instrument or a group of instruments or the human voice finds an echo in me, in the musical idea within me, then I can sit down and compose. [O]therwise I canno
  • Extra-musical images may also provide the composer with ideas and material and contribute to musical creativity.
  • ome composers need to have something for it to react against.38 Xenakis, however, asserted that "all truly creative people escape this foolish side of work, the exaltation of sentiments. They are to be discarded like the fat surrounding meat before it is cooked."
  • as, as these examples show, dreams can also solve certain problems of the creative process.
  • In other words, to compose does not mean to merely carry out an initial idea. The composer reserves the right to change his or her mind after the conception of an idea.
  • n sum, self-imposed restrictions or "boundary conditions"55 seem to provide composers with a kind of pretext to choose from an otherwise chaotic multitude of compositional possibilities that, however, gradually disappears and gets absorbed into the process of composition which is characterized by the composers' aesthetic perceptions and choices.
  • Therefore, it is not surprising that influences from the musical world in which the composer lives play an important role in the creative process
  • Thereby the past is seen as being comprised by a static system of rules and techniques that needs to be innovated and emancipated during the composers' search for their own musical identity.
  • I strongly suggest that we play down basics like who influenced whom, and instead study the way the influence is transformed; in other words: how the artist made it his own.
  • Nothing I found was based on the "masterpiece," on the closed cycle, on passive contemplation or narrowly aesthetic pleasure.61
  • Furthermore, for some composers the musical influence can emerge from the development of computer technology.
  • In sum, the compositional process proceeds in a kind of personal and social tension. In many cases, composers are faced with the tensive conflict between staying with tradition and breaking new ground at each step in the process. Thus, one might conclude that the creative process springs from a systematic viewpoint determined by a number of choices in which certain beliefs, ideas, and influences—by no means isolated from the rest of the composer's life—play a dominant role in the search for new possibilities of expression.
  • If a general educational approach is to emerge from the alloy of composers' experiences of their music creativity, it rests on the realization that the creative process involves a diversity of idiosyncratic conscious and unconscious traits.
  • After all, the creative process is an elusive cultural activity with no recipes for making it happen.
  • n this light, the common thread of composers' idiosyncratic concerns and practices that captures the overall aura of their music creativity pertains to (a) the intangibility of the unconscious throughout the compositional process,68 (b) the development of musical individuality,69 and (c) the desire to transgress existing rules and codes, due to their personal and social conflict between tradition and innovation.70
  • In turn, by making student composers in different classroom settings grasp the essence of influential professional composers' creative concerns, even if they do not intend to become professional composers, we can help them immerse in learning experiences that respect the mysteries of their intuitions, liberate their own practices of critical thinking in music, and dare to create innovative music that expresses against-the-prevailing-grain musical beliefs and ideas.
  • Therefore, it is critical that the music teacher be seen as the facilitator of students' compositional processes helping students explore and continuously discover their own creative personalities and, thus, empowering their personal involvement with music. Any creative work needs individual attention and encouragement for each vision and personal experience are different.
  • After all, the quality of mystery is a common theme in nearly every composer's accoun
  • Failing this, musical creativity remains a predictable academic exercise
  • Music teachers need to possess the generosity to refuse to deny student composers the freedom to reflect their own insights back to them and, in turn, influence the teachers' musical reality
  • Indeed, it is important that music teachers try to establish students gradually as original, independent personalities who try to internalize sounds and, thus, unite themselves with their environment in a continuous creative process.
  • Music teachers, therefore, wishing student composers to express and exercise all their ideas, should grant them ample time to work on their compositions,
  • n sum, music knowledge or techniques and the activation of the student composers' desire for discovery and innovation should evolve together through balanced stimulation.
  • While music creativity has been a component of music education research for decades, some of the themes arising from professional composers' experiences of their creativity, such as the significance of the unconscious, the apprehension towards discovering ones' own musical language, or the personal and social tension between tradition and innovation, among others, have not been adequately recognized in the literature of music education
  • By doing this, I strongly believe that musical creativity in general and composing in particular run the risk of becoming a predictable academic exercise
  • which merely demands problem-solving skills on the part of the student composers (or alleged "critical thinkers").
  • . On the other hand, only few music educators appear to draw their composer students' attention to the importance of the personal and social conflict between staying within a tradition or code, even if it is the Western popular music tradition, and breaking new ground at each step in the creative process and, possibly, shaping new traditions or codes.
  • Culture is a precious human undertaking, and the host of musics, arts, languages, religions, myths, and rituals that comprise it need to be carefully transmitted to the young and transformed in the process."85
  • Nevertheless, further research is needed in which women's voices can be heard that may offer an emancipatory perspective for the instruction of composition in education which will "challenge the political domination of men."
Kelly Dau

Math Teaching Resources for K-5 Classrooms - 121 views

www.k-5mathteachingresources.com

math common core

shared by Kelly Dau on 13 Sep 11 - No Cached
  • James Allen on 13 Sep 11
     
    This site provides a range of resources, math games, and hands-on math activities aligned with the Common Core State Standards for Mathematics. Also available are Math Journal tasks for Kindergarten, 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th Grade for teachers looking to use Math Journals as a means of providing students with opportunities to organize, clarify and reflect on their thinking while developing key mathematical skills and understandings.
  • Kelly Dau on 31 Oct 12
     
    This site provides an extensive collection of free resources, math games, and hands-on math activities aligned with the Common Core State Standards.
Adrienne Michetti

Where Everybody Knows Your (Screen) Name: Online Games as "Third Places" - 52 views

jcmc.indiana.edu/...steinkuehler.html

games gaming social

shared by Adrienne Michetti on 19 Nov 09 - Cached
    • Adrienne Michetti
      Adrienne Michetti on 19 Nov 09
       
      This is, I think, why I'm more keen on today's social networks than I am on games -- games do not provide deep emotional support.
  • "bowling alone" hypothesis (Putnam, 2000), which suggests that media are displacing crucial civic and social institutions
    • Adrienne Michetti
      Adrienne Michetti on 19 Nov 09
       
      Putnam - need to check this article. Interesting; not sure I agree.
  • ...80 more annotations...
  • According to Putnam, time spent with relatively passive and disengaging media has come at the expense of time spent on vital community-building activities.
  • The evidence to date is mixed
  • A core problem on both sides of the debate is an underlying assumption that all Internet use is more or less equivalent
    • Adrienne Michetti
      Adrienne Michetti on 19 Nov 09
       
      SO True
  • It would be more plausible and empirically rigorous, then, to consider how specific forms of Internet activity impact civic and social engagement as a result of their particular underlying social architectures
  • combining conclusions from two different lines of MMO research conducted from two different perspectives—one from a media effects approach, the other from a sociocultural perspective on cognition and learning.
  • By providing spaces for social interaction and relationships beyond the workplace and home, MMOs have the capacity to function as one form of a new "third place" for informal sociability much like the pubs, coffee shops, and other hangouts of old.
  • loosely structured by open-ended narratives
  • They are known for their peculiar combination of designed "escapist fantasy" and emergent "social realism"
  • from two research projects: one an examination of the media effects of MMOs, the other an ethnographic study of cognition and culture in such contexts.
  • the conclusions of both studies were remarkably aligned.
  • the assumption that the most fruitful advances are sometimes made when congruent findings are discovered through disparate means
    • Adrienne Michetti
      Adrienne Michetti on 19 Nov 09
       
      Love this quote.
  • demonstrate the "effects" of game play vs. no game play.
  • first project was a traditional effects study
  • second project, a qualitative study of cognition and learning in MMOs (
  • ethnography
  • sociocultural perspective
  • as a way to tease out what happens in the virtual setting of the game and how the people involved consider their own activities, the activities of others, and the contexts in which those activities takes place
  • a reasonable level of generalizability (random assignment to condition in the first study) and contextualization (ethnographic description of existing in-game social networks and practices in the second)
    • Adrienne Michetti
      Adrienne Michetti on 19 Nov 09
       
      but I wonder why he chose these games -- this is not specified. Only their success in US and abroad?
  • brick-and-mortar "third places" in America where individuals can gather to socialize informally beyond the workplace and home
  • the exaggerated self-consciousness of individuals.
  • In what ways might MMOs function as new third places for informal sociability?
  • virtual environments have the potential to function as new (albeit digitally mediated) third places similar to pubs, coffee shops, and other hangouts.
  • in this section we analyze the structural form of MMOs that warrants this "third place" assertion.
  • eight defining characteristics of third places
  • there is no default obligation
  • To oblige any one person to play requires that explicit agreements be entered into by parties
  • the default assumption is that no one person is compelled to participate legally, financially, or otherwise.
  • Unless one transforms the virtual world of the game into a workplace (e.g., by taking on gainful employment as a virtual currency "farmer" for example, Dibbell, 2006; Steinkuehler, 2006a) or enters into such agreement, no one person is obligated to log in
    • Adrienne Michetti
      Adrienne Michetti on 19 Nov 09
       
      and this is why, in my opinion, you will never see games in school. The game cannot be the Third Place because school is a Second Place.
  • Yee's (2006) interviews also reveal that individuals who game with romantic partners or family find that such joint engagement in the "other world" of MMOs allows them to redefine the nature and boundaries of their offline relationships, often in more equitable terms than what may be possible in day-to-day offline life
  • the relationships that play-partners have with one another offline are often "leveled" within the online world
  • an individual's rank and status in the home, workplace, or society are of no importance
  • appeal to people in part because they represent meritocracies otherwise unavailable in a world often filled with unfairness
  • conversation plays an analogous role
  • "In all such systems, linguistic interactions have been primary: users exchange messages that cement the social bonds between them, messages that reflect shared history and understandings (or misunderstandings) about the always evolving local norms for these interactions" (p. 22).
  • third places must also be easy to access
  • such that "one may go alone at almost any time of the day or evening with assurance that acquaintances will be there"
  • accessible directly from one's home, making them even more accommodating to individual schedules and preferences
  • barriers to initial access.
  • "What attracts a regular visitor to a third place is supplied not by management but by the fellow customer,"
  • "It is the regulars who give the place its character and who assure that on any given visit some of the gang will be there"
  • affective sense
  • As one informant satirically commented in an interview, "You go for the experience [points], you stay for the enlightening conversation.
  • engendering a sense of reliable mentorship and community stability.
  • Oldenburg argues that third places are characteristically homely, their d�cor defying tidiness and pretension whenever possible. MMOs do not fit this criterion in any literal sense
  • In neither of our investigations did the degree of formality exhibited by players within the game bear any relation to the degree of visual ornamentation of the players' immediate vicinity.
  • Thus, while the visual form of MMO environments does not fit Oldenburg's (1999) criterion of "low profile," the social function of those environments does.
  • Oldenburg (1999) argues that seriousness is anathema to a vibrant third place; instead, frivolity, verbal word play, and wit are essential.
  • The playful nature of MMOs is perhaps most apparent in what happens when individuals do bring gravity to the game.
  • the home-like quality of third places in rooting people
  • Participation becomes a regular part of daily life for players and, among regular gamemates such as guild members, exceptional absences (i.e., prolonged or unforeseen ones) are queried within the game or outside i
  • create an atmosphere of mutual caring that, while avoiding entangling obligations per se, creates a sense of rootedness to the extent that regularities exist, irregularities are duly noted, and, when concerning the welfare of any one regular, checked into
  • Are virtual communities really communities, or is physical proximity necessary?
  • Anderson (1991), who suggests that geographic proximity itself is neither a necessary nor sufficient condition for the emergence and preservation of "community."
  • Social capital (Coleman, 1988) works analogously to financial capital; it can be acquired and spent, but for social and personal gains rather than financial
  • operates cyclically within social networks because of their associated norms of reciprocity
  • bridging social capital is inclusive.
  • This form of social capital is marked by tentative relationships, yet what they lack in depth, they make up for in breadth.
  • On the one hand, bridging social capital provides little in the way of emotional support; on the other hand, such relationships can broaden social horizons or worldviews, providing access to information and new resources.
  • bonding social capital is exclusive.
  • social superglue.
  • it can also result in insularity.
  • shows that bridging and bonding social capital are tied to different social contexts, given the network of relationships they enable.
  • Virtual worlds appear to function best as bridging mechanisms rather than as bonding ones, although they do not entirely preclude social ties of the latter type.
  • One could argue that, if the benchmark for bonding social capital is the ability to acquire emotional, practical, or substantive support, then MMOs are not well set up for the task:
  • While deep affective relationships among players are possible, they are less likely to generate the same range of bonding benefits as real-world relationships because of players' geographic dispersion and the nature of third places themselves.
  • Despite differences in theoretical grounding and methodologies, our conclusions were remarkably similar across complementary macro- and micro-levels.
  • It is worth noting, however, that as gamers become more involved in long-term social networks such as guilds and their activities become more "hardcore" (e.g., marked by participation in large-scale collaborative problem-solving endeavors such as "raids" into difficult territories or castle sieges), the function of MMOs as "third places" begins to wane.
  • It may be, then, that the structure and function of MMOs as third places is one part of the "life cycle" for some gamers in a given title.
  • In such cases, MMOs appear to enable a different kind of sociability, one ostensibly recognizable as a "community" nonetheless.
  • However, our research findings indicate that this conclusion is uninformed. To argue that MMO game play is isolated and passive media consumption in place of informal social engagement is to ignore the nature of what participants actually do behind the computer screen
  • Perhaps it is not that contemporary media use has led to a decline in civic and social engagement, but rather that a decline in civic and social engagement has led to retribalization through contemporary media (McLuhan, 1964).
  • Such a view, however, ignores important nuances of what "community" means by pronouncing a given social group/place as either wholly "good" or "bad" without first specifying which functions the online community ought to fulfill.
  • Moreover, despite the semantics of the term, "weak" ties have been shown to be vital in communities, relationships, and opportunities.
  • is to what extent such environments shift the existing balance between bridging and bonding
  • In light of Putnam's evidence of the decline of crucial civic and social institutions, it may well be that the classification "lacking bridging social capital" best characterizes the everyday American citizen. T
  • Without bridging relationships, individuals remain sheltered from alternative viewpoints and cultures and largely ignorant of opportunities and information beyond their own closely bound social network.
  • it seems ironic that, now of all times, we would ignore one possible solution to our increasingly vexed relationship with diversity.
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