John Cleary

John Cleary

About me

Dr. John Cleary

John Cleary currently teaches Philosophy at Beal University in Maine. He has also taught English, Speech/Drama, American/ World Literature and Philosophy at a high school (17 years) before transitioning to teaching Philosophy with college students for the past 12 years. He hold a B.A. in Philosophy from Ohio Wesleyan University, and M.A. in English Education from The City College (C.U.N.Y.) and doctorate in Pedagogy and Philosophy from the Institute for the Advancement of Philosophy for Children at Montclair State University. He is also a professional actor, poet, folk musician and part time resident of Canada. His research interests focus on the relationship between the information environment and Philosophy.

Activity

Thanks for all the information about blogging and how to use it to engage students.

Note: Your comments about "head" and "heart" (referring to younger students and older adults) needs to be clearer.

Do you mean that younger people are not able to engage in the same quality/level of reasoning adults engage in? This is a contestable claim.

What is the evidence for this?

Piaget was wrong. Children can also philosophize well if adults allow them to.

Side Note: Look also at David Hume's description that people (young and old) are a "bundle of sense impressions."

There are also mutiple… >>>

Students often have not learned to do more than live from the heart, while adults have concentrated their efforts on more cerebral approaches. This means a group of diverse people can bridge the gap that exists by writing together.


What does this mean? That younger people are not as rational as adults are?

Any generation suffers from cognitive biases and personality disorders. 

To "live from the heart" is therefore not exclusive to either young or older people.

This is excellent.

"Edmodo is a site that allows users to establish a class microblogging network where only those in the course can post, share, and critique each other’s ideas. This provides an opportunity for the online instructor to have students share information in a secure site and facilitate the development of providing constructive criticism. Other microblogging sites may be set up in a similar fashion. When students feel that their comments are only being read and responded to by their peers, many times the facilitation of the conversation is not as difficult as they feel comfortable in that secure… >>>

The ethos associated with the culture of abbeviation, which most of the on-line community exercises, undermines the value of commuunicatioing insightfully 

through sustained explanation and explication. By insisting that complex ideas by communicated in 280 words or less, you undermine the students' freedom

to express themselves throughly.

The cuture of abbreviation is driven by market values and sound bites presented as truth, not erudition.

"Business students may follow Donald Trump." What is being insinuated in a a comment like this?

That business students can learn NOT to cheat and lie? Or does it mean something else altogether?

The word "chunk" (doesn't quite work does it) should be replaced with ASSIMILATE or INCORPORATE.

What if this information is packed with misinformation, disinformation, distortions and lies?

We need a counter technology to combat this. What might this look like?

 

This is a contestable claim. What is meant by the pulse of society?

Do you mean the latest information about the Kardashians? It seems questionable that microblogging

accomplishes the kind of edifying discourse you assume it allows people to engage in.

The most compelling reason to use the sites is for sharing information. This has important implication for teaching and learning.

 

If students are already immersed in social media for personal purposes, then it may follow

that using social media in an academic setting would assist the instructor in content delivery. However, I am still

skeptical that social media helps students think critically, or value the purpose of contemplative thinking. What's the last book they've read? 

Knowledge acquisition is important. Good. But what about the role of reflective thinking?

 

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