Graded 21st Century

Used mindfully, how can digital media help us grow smarter?  My years of study and experience have led me to conclude that humans are humans because we invent thinking and communicating tools that enable us to do bigger, more powerful things together.

etter than anyone else, he helped me to understand the importance of attention as the ultimate, finite, precious resource, one which must be constantly attended to, strengthened as a muscle, husbanded for our productivity.   “When it comes to the interacting with the world of always-on info, the fundamental skill, on which other essential skills depend, is the ability to deal with distraction without filtering out opportunity.”

Rheingold’s chapter on Attention offers valuable suggestions for strengthening our mindfulness by using meditation, goal-setting, “intentionality,”  and other tools to become more metacognitive and more intentional about how we concentrate in the times when we choose to do so. 

This new revolution started in the 20th century with sound recording and film, moved next to television and radio and today takes the form of the internet.  He points out that there is a common theme when people consider these changes – that they are not simply something new but also the end of something old. 

The primary impact on the mediated context of content during the parenthetical period is containment.  Look at a printed work, Pettitt suggested, and you will see strict regimentation.  Words are forced into lines, surrounded by margins, placed on pages that are sewn into a binding, contained by a jacket and placed on a shelf where they can be contained and controlled.  The words have been "imprisoned" and have lost much of their pre-parenthetical fluidity.  This confinement of cultural production has obviously not been limited to the written work: plays move to stages and music to concert halls during the parenthesis.

He said that human consciousness in the digital age, which de-emphasizes the kinds of categorization that marked the age of print, makes us think in a way that is reminiscent of a "medieval peasant."

More than 200 college presidents and employers are pledging to support a liberal arts education, expand access to hands-on learning and better track schools’ success in achieving learning goals like complex problem-solving.

One interesting tidbit from the survey is surging demand for, or at least acceptance of, electronic portfolios, which look something like this.

So says a new survey by the Association of American Colleges and Universities, in which 93% of respondent employers cite critical thinking, communication and problem-solving skills as more important than a candidate’s undergraduate major.