Ok, I don't think I have journaled on Tom Friedman's book "The World is Flat yet, have I? When I was off for the 9 weeks after my foot surgery in the fall of 2005 I was surfing the channels as I was laying in the lazy boy with my foot up & came across the National Governor's Association's Conference on C-Span. The Governor from MI was introducing Tom & it intriqued me. Man, talk about BLOWING MY MIND! Which quite frankly takes a lot & I get so high on that! Best Drug for me!
I love men that can do that to me! 
To me, stimulating my brain is just as good if not better than sex! 
Ok, well an extremely close 2nd! Well, as I tell my students sex is at the brain level & that is why stress causes problems in that department! HA! Ok, before I totally lose it here...back to Tom...HA! He is a 2 time Pulitzer Prize Winner! His book just went expanded into Education & is now over 500 pages...no I have not finished it yet! Watch the speech I heard him give & tell me what you think!
What made me think to share this is my cousin sent me an email with another mind blowing wake up call! Watch This! This is just incredible too. Any student who tells me I am doing too much technology is going to get it!
It is just amazing! I'm thinking of my nieces & what their world will be like. I think I should go get my PhD in Technology? HA! I'd never be out of a job & heck we know there probably will not be any social security by the time I retire & with a teacher's retirement??? 
At least I could still work & know the latest technology when I'm older! HA! 
Well, love to hear what you think after you watch them. As I get into the book I'll share what I learn.
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7 comments:
Hey! Debbie...found your entry in carnivaol, so I had a little read and watch the videos you mentioned. A lot to remember and to say. First I would like to thank you. I like watching other things than celebs, a bit of serious topics do for me. Now, what did I think on the spur of the moment, when watching the speech, then having my thoughts taken away a few seconds by the other UTub... which I stipped before the end because it just summarised what I thought I felt I understood with the speech. My overall feeling is "much a do about nothing" and "this guy is just giving a big signal to his comrad about the size of India along with China and how the technology is going to give similar advantages to those kids over there and that the US kids will not remain the kings on earth". Right, this is not new, and to me he seems to be the only one to wake up to this or he really needed a new idea for a new book.
Basically, I think Friedman wasted his time in that conference and should have applied to be a teacher of history to kids; he would have had probably interesting comments and questions from those who are born in this time of transition and are growing with it. (cont...)
(cont...)
Nothing to worry about, Friedman is just like someone who seems to have lost a lot or is ever so scared or out of ideas. I do not believe in linear development, but in circular one, so there will be advance and more advance, but there will also be people like me who will just be watching in peace those kids living in their time, their era. Another history, not to fear, just live with it. We just don't have to be on the first seat all our life. Yes it is about accepting growing older and see evolution happening under our eyes whilst we are alive and not just in history books. I am sorry to say that after 18 minutes, I was really bored. Nothing new, the title is interesting, but nothing more than a good teacher of history in all this, for kids, and perhaps those wanting to be invilved in business. These are my first reactions.
Valerie
I am on a dinosaur PC with Windows 98 and dial-up. Sorry, but I don't do video. It is as painstaking as pulling teeth! :o( - Barbara
P. S. -- That's a shame too!! I can't recall ever seeing a man who could stimulate my mind. ;o) - Barbara
No Debbie, I watched the full speech, but I wanted to nodte when I started being distracted for it was telling me something. Self-reflection, that's all. I am a very patient person and I am not often "bored" or feeling impatient, so I had to take note of this passing feeling and moment and try to recaptivate my attention with every point mentioned by him, ignoring a bit his mimics and big speech to keep the audience awake. I am sorry, I still think that it looks good because it happened at a conference. I thnk kids need more teachers like him. He has nothing to say, his point is not new neither. He is like someone coming back from his cave and discovering the world is changing around him, but still believe he is in the front seat of science Ah! the NY Times!... fame, money, all this, make himself a name; perhaps he writes well, perhaps he is a good conferencier, but like the global warming, he cannot stop anything; this is now our children's future, and we have nothing to teach them, they have all to teach us. What do we know really? science used to convince me, not anymore. this is all blablabla, and it works for some. Let's the kids get ready for a future that is theirs, just watch and care; there is nothing we will change with our efforts, it's now in our kids' hands, we have had our time, let's them have theirs. It is played on another plane, one a lot of us are not ready to comprehend still believing in their old beliefs, as if...
I saw his point, but still, much a do about nothing. 47 minutes of speech was much too much for me. I wished I had watched the questions coming after if there were any. No, this is not for me, and the kids would be delighted to take him on.
Valerie
Debbie, that's the problem with universities, they are blown up with every book that comes out and announce news as such. I read guies like Chomsky, and he wrote books in the 80s/90s that are already speaking about all this. It is easy for a good writer who travels a little with a bit of imagination and looking for his next book to write to make such fuss around what has already be written. Just list the issues he mentions one by one and see what substance he brings to these. This is where I stand anyway. Universities you know, I am glad they exist for I love all those thinkers, they give me plenty to think, but in my opinion, they tend to conform people's thought, and this is why I learn by myself and I am not looking after a piece of paper attesting of my own abilities and capacities as a person and professional. There is more into life than that. My way of being only, and this is how I saw it. I hope you'll enjoy all your students comments and those of your colleagues. Me, I would basically run away, it has the same effect on me as when people tell me everything about a movie they watched, that I have not; I don't want to know about it before I have put my own eyes on it.
That's just me. I appreciate your open mind.
Valerie
http://journals.aol.co.uk/iiimagicxx/surreality/
I come via CarnivAOL. I haven't heard about his book, so you'll have to let us know. Now, I'm off to watch some video's......
Thank You!
Rebecca
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