tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-150454732012-02-16T11:42:37.667-06:00randyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13271933716555045784noreply@blogger.comBlogger751100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15045473.post-61408518408217201332011-02-27T21:31:00.002-06:002011-02-27T21:43:38.773-06:00

I'm sold on the usefulness of the Web for education, so it's important that I hear a different perspective once in a while. So . . . I checked out Nicholas Carr's The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to our Brains and Sherry Turkle's Life on the Screen from our provincial library system. I was really disappointed with the former; Carr just kept saying that the way the Internet is shaping the

randyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13271933716555045784noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15045473.post-85805503399875449222011-02-16T20:59:00.003-06:002011-02-16T21:07:58.133-06:00

Funny--I was calling this a "flip" before I knew that others are. In a small way it's what we're doing with a course I'm now facilitating, and it's what I'm proposing as the heart of our Distance Ed program at Horizon.The idea? That we take the risk of dividing what we've worked so hard over the past few years to integrate--content and interaction--and use the web to "deliver" content, reserving

randyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13271933716555045784noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15045473.post-63492649949193447342011-02-06T14:27:00.002-06:002011-02-06T14:36:45.542-06:00

I was reading along in 1 Samuel, finding it all quite familiar, and suddenly came upon 25:3--His name was Nabal and his wife’s name was Abigail. She was an intelligent and beautiful woman, but her husband was surly and mean in his dealings—he was a Calebite.Wow! For all the sermons I've heard and preached about Caleb and his godly, faith-filled character and about Nabal and his surly godlessness,

randyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13271933716555045784noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15045473.post-18856880384612618332011-02-06T14:13:00.002-06:002011-02-06T14:27:06.820-06:00

I knew it had been a long time since the last posting, but good grief--back in May? Since then I've finished the PhD and graduated and started a new job and moved . . . phew!I'm trying to inspire students to use blogging in a course I'm teaching and, as part of that effort, am blogging with them--using edublogs but not as a class blog, just for my own contribution.Besides that, though, it's

randyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13271933716555045784noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15045473.post-66828496630091969792010-05-10T21:26:00.004-06:002010-05-10T21:43:43.845-06:00

On Friday, we read this rather uncharacteristic bit from Barth:He talks about the oxymoron of a “gloomy, morose and melancholy Gospel” and then says, “A troubled Christian is per definitionem not a Christian, because as such he is definitely not in a position to be a witness of Jesus Christ. To be sure, it is not his personal joyousness which makes him a witness. For this is not what makes his

randyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13271933716555045784noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15045473.post-2902100560445559352010-01-15T22:30:00.002-06:002010-01-15T22:43:49.365-06:00

Barth made me mad today. That’s a good thing, because it means 1) he’s making me question some basic things that I most likely have uncritically assumed, and 2) some of my thoughts are beginning to gel re: these important issues. In today’s reading, from IV-3-2, pp. 568-76, Barth takes on Quietists, Pietists, and assorted others for whom I have come to have a great appreciation (not least of

randyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13271933716555045784noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15045473.post-65933585826303362622009-12-04T10:05:00.002-06:002009-12-04T10:15:19.013-06:00

I'm thoroughly enjoying the Advent meditations from Goshen College. Today's posting is from Lisa Guedea Carreño, director of the Good Library. She writes,"Preparing the way of the Lord doesn’t end when Advent ends, but begins anew and continues – until all flesh shall see the salvation of God.". . . and all the members of our Barth reading group said, "Amen!" We read about union with Christ this

randyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13271933716555045784noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15045473.post-48399188224433483892009-10-16T17:15:00.002-06:002009-10-16T18:04:22.882-06:00

We've been exploring some things at our Barth reading group lately that are resonating deeply with me and related closely to my studies. D. W. Horstkoettker at flying farther explains his reservations (not strong enough?) about evangelicals' focus on conversion as the central paradigm/narrative for Christian faith. I'd be surprised if DWH doesn't get some feedback from his Lonerganian friends at

randyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13271933716555045784noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15045473.post-41396459459886957272009-03-19T14:54:00.004-06:002009-03-19T15:28:18.091-06:00

David Scobey, in his article, "Meanings and Metrics", Inside Higher Ed, March 19, 2009, notes the challenge that assessment poses when the goals for learning go beyond "informational content in a sub-discipline, performance of competent analyses according to check-listed rubrics." He calls for "a 'slow food' model of evaluation" via portfolios. What he has to say resonates to a great extent with

randyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13271933716555045784noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15045473.post-50907907990336248082009-03-08T16:39:00.003-06:002009-03-08T17:00:03.046-06:00

Clarence at Remote Access is thinking about the negative side of competitive learning. I agree totally when he says,I would argue that it is more likely that global cooperation and collaboration are the skills we should be aiming at promoting in schools and classrooms. Students who can think through problems with others, who know where to go for information and understanding, and who have the

randyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13271933716555045784noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15045473.post-14303633963212101242009-02-16T08:50:00.002-06:002009-02-16T09:31:48.935-06:00

My friends and family regularly hear my confession that anything that has to do with numbers makes my head swim, so it's interesting to me how I find something like Dale Harris's latest post so fascinating. I think it's the power of analogy, and the fact that, without being able to comprehend all the details, I can get so caught up in the general idea when it's explained by a master teacher like

randyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13271933716555045784noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15045473.post-76427827069269547652009-02-12T18:16:00.003-06:002009-02-12T19:00:35.900-06:00

Something important occurred to me as I was thinking about key parts of my research project, and I wondered how I might go about finding out whether I was on the right track. So, I turned to my (very informal) network. I'm not a dues-paying member of the T F Torrance Fellowship because their online payment system doesn't accept $ from Canada, and I noticed that the Fellowship's blog hasn't seen

randyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13271933716555045784noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15045473.post-60480570887187230552009-01-24T10:37:00.003-06:002009-01-24T11:41:03.974-06:00

Wow--a long hiatus! I've been working hard to try to understand and express what's central to my project, but nothing has ended up here for a long time. So here are some random thoughts (ok, not quite so random): On his blog, “Just in CASE,” Trevor Cairney responds to Tim Clydesdale’s “Wake Up and Smell the New Epistemology” in the Chronicle of Higher Education. I'm a little surprised by Trevor's

randyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13271933716555045784noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15045473.post-58875896866407326242008-10-07T20:57:00.003-06:002008-10-07T21:06:42.259-06:00

To respond to Dustin's comment on the previous post, here are some references to participation that I've gleaned from Torrance--on knowledge of God, conversion, and the church:Regarding knowledge of God, “we know that we cannot attribute it to ourselves and know that we can only say something of how it arises by referring beyond ourselves to God's acts upon us—i.e. though it is our knowledge of

randyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13271933716555045784noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15045473.post-17796174530396664802008-10-03T14:29:00.002-06:002008-10-03T14:49:51.641-06:00

As I worked through some material on and by those who speak of Radical Orthodoxy (as I realized I needed to do) and came upon the conversation between RO and Reformed scholars, especially in Radical Orthodoxy and the Reformed Tradition, ed. Smith & Olthuis, I began to realize how much the discussion re: participation, analogy, etc. is tied up with ecclesiology. Then I read the pieces by John

randyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13271933716555045784noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15045473.post-59984316789002444742008-10-03T14:20:00.002-06:002008-10-03T14:25:01.503-06:00

So . . . Dustin has (reluctantly) entered the blogosphere! I'd say "welcome," but that's probably inappropriate from someone who blogs as sporadically (randomly) as I do. Lots of good stuff already at ". . . A Resch Like Me," and I'm looking forward to lots more.(The title makes me laugh--I can just imagine Dustin's "Mini-Me" coming out with that line.)

randyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13271933716555045784noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15045473.post-88991279396458976252008-10-03T14:10:00.003-06:002008-10-03T14:15:28.419-06:00

I'm among the least interested when it comes to politics--at every level, but particularly when it comes to those of our giant neighbour to the south. But I enjoy the "Van Peebles Land" blog of David Williamson (an Irishman in Wales!) and I have to shout out a huzzah for this clever post on President Bush II and his future.

randyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13271933716555045784noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15045473.post-56892674885122600882008-09-20T15:44:00.002-06:002008-09-20T16:15:34.531-06:00

I've already forgotten whose footnote set me on the trail, but I suddenly realized that the language I've been using of participation and analogy, etc. is a significant part of the vocabulary of Radical Orthodoxy, so I've been trying to get up to speed with the way Milbank, Ward, Pickstock & co. are using those terms/notions. In the process, it finally twigged why John Webster chose, in his paper

randyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13271933716555045784noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15045473.post-11692083591180330182008-08-31T20:55:00.001-06:002008-08-31T20:58:03.133-06:00

Sesame Street has to be one of those under-rated radically defining pieces of cultural change. Check out Bert and Ernie on using one's imagination.

randyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13271933716555045784noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15045473.post-69399525107889896142008-08-29T18:41:00.004-06:002008-09-13T15:10:48.131-06:00

Michael Wesch, the cultural anthropologist from Kansas State University who produced "The Machine is Us[ing Us]" and an hour-long (approx) YouTube video on his students' research on YouTube ("on" in multiple senses) unpacks the former in a lecture at the University of Manitoba recorded last June. This is a perfect introduction to what I'm trying to look at theologically.Here's his class Netvibes

randyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13271933716555045784noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15045473.post-17556762195370237062008-08-26T22:50:00.003-06:002008-08-26T23:02:48.180-06:00

Our Distance Learning staff joined Moose Jaw teachers and administrators and guests from both Alberta and Manitoba for a day with Ewan McIntosh yesterday. Thanks to Dean Shareski for putting the day together. It was very valuable for us, and the debriefing session at our staff meeting this afternoon is just the start of what I am sure will be lots of innovation and creative ideas to come in the

randyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13271933716555045784noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15045473.post-78601515132185365142008-05-15T17:16:00.002-06:002008-05-15T17:45:43.113-06:00

I'm enjoying the TLt conference in Saskatoon--the ID pre-conference yesterday, and the full conference today and tomorrow. It's a joy to see old friends (though some object to the "old" part--probably fearing the potential association with this old guy) and the presentations, both keynote and concurrent, have been very good. I finally met George Siemens face to face. I caught his opening keynote

randyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13271933716555045784noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15045473.post-89387101369033077542008-04-16T15:54:00.004-06:002008-04-16T16:27:23.874-06:00

My friend David and I attended the analogia entis conference in DC last week. (If we need proof, there’s this photo. I’m the bald one wearing a green jacket—a raincoat that came in handy in DC’s soggy Cherry Blossom Festival weather.) I wish I had known that other bloggers were there. (Of course, I’m such an infrequent and tardy blogger that I hardly fit the category.) I found out since coming

randyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13271933716555045784noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15045473.post-40619278923709984362008-02-29T13:23:00.002-06:002008-02-29T13:42:28.304-06:00

I've heard the observation that the process of learning through reading blogs and publishing one's own is not really all that different from reading and publishing in print journals, except that it's light years faster. Of course, that's the first radical difference, but it dawned on me the other day that, although the blog conversation, through comments and linked posts, still uses third-person

randyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13271933716555045784noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15045473.post-53623966556446671302008-02-29T12:55:00.002-06:002008-02-29T13:23:08.162-06:00

George Siemens responds to Peter Tittenberger's The Strength of Garden Walls. I wonder if there might be something else at work here besides educators' tendency to think in outmoded terms of "my stuff" and the attendant view of education as something that ought to happen behind closed doors (though I heartily agree with the assessment that the notion of intellectual property is something that

randyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13271933716555045784noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15045473.post-68825046324007961772008-02-11T18:30:00.001-06:002008-09-13T15:39:27.995-06:00

Thiemann rejects the causality inherent in foundationalism & turns instead to intentionality: “According to this form of philosophical analysis, a person's identity is constituted by the intentions he or she carries into action. Actions are appropriately described as enacted intentions, and intentions are rightly described as implicit actions. Identity-description is nothing more or less than the

randyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13271933716555045784noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15045473.post-8781796367584536482008-02-02T14:21:00.000-06:002008-02-02T15:29:07.115-06:00

Key to my exploration of education, epistemology, theology is the question of revelation, and particularly the issue of whether/how we can know God. (E.g., Jerry H. Gill, On Knowing God: New Directions for the Future of Theology [Westminster, 1981] and idem, Mediated Transcendence: A Postmodern Reflection [Mercer, 1989]; Denys Turner, Faith, Reason and the Existence of God [Cambridge, 2004]; Paul

randyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13271933716555045784noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15045473.post-10004146869507024832008-02-02T14:02:00.000-06:002008-02-11T19:41:53.504-06:00

Both Rick Schwier and Mark at E-BCNZer (see there also links to his interchange with George Siemens on connectivism) refer to an EDUCAUSE Review article by John Seely Brown and Richard P. Adler that nails for me the reality that important theological themes and trends in education theory are converging rapidly--clearly, evidence that I need to get my project done before its conclusions are so

randyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13271933716555045784noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15045473.post-81689460955001966702008-01-28T07:22:00.000-06:002008-01-28T07:43:57.257-06:00

I've had several "aha! moments" lately, the most recent about my conversation partners' theological epistemology (a term favoured by Steve Sherman in his Revitalizing Theological Epistemology, a review copy of which I've just received from the good folks at Pickwick/Wipf & Stock). In the last chapter of God, the Mind's Desire, Paul Janz, following Bonhoeffer's designations, rightly points out

randyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13271933716555045784noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15045473.post-14547996410291023972008-01-28T07:09:00.001-06:002008-01-28T07:22:37.991-06:00

OK, that should have been "us Christians" in the last lines of the earlier posting. I got thinking later, "I meant that generally, but what if it comes across as critical of particular Christians?" Then I had to admit that my responsibility is for this particular Christian, and I am guilty of trying to hold on to what is "mine" and not share openly. I have invested a great deal in this PhD

randyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13271933716555045784noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15045473.post-40901710227764437452008-01-11T20:55:00.001-06:002008-01-25T16:19:23.859-06:00

At long last, I'm getting around to interacting with these comments from Tim Bulkeley at SansBlogue on a post by Nichthus (whoever that may be) at E-BCNZer on the impact of Web 2.0 on education. (It seems Tim and I (and Nichthus) have a lot of similar interests. Tim blogs today on metaphor, and that's what I've spent a week researching. I tried Zotero earlier and decided to drop it, but on his

randyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13271933716555045784noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15045473.post-51961176942260509502007-12-28T20:32:00.000-06:002008-12-10T12:19:46.341-06:00

(Click on the image of the title page to see the Google Video.) I had the opportunity last month to present this paper at a mini-conference in the Education department at the U of S. I greatly appreciated the chance to clarify for myself, by explaining to others, how I'm approaching the issues of epistemology and learning that underpin my PhD project. After the conference, I decided to learn how

randyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13271933716555045784noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15045473.post-52341322566914030202007-10-22T17:20:00.000-06:002007-10-22T17:54:49.794-06:00

Teemu Leinonen here and here refers to the work of Sami Paavola, Lasse Lipponen and Kai Hakkarainen, expanding the ideas presented in the 1998 Anna Sfard article "On Two Metaphors for Learning and the Danger of Choosing Just One."Dr. Hugh Morrison at Queen's Belfast pointed out that article to me, and it's going to figure largely in my project. I was reading "participation" in Sfard, though, in

randyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13271933716555045784noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15045473.post-15819716432504866452007-05-24T11:56:00.000-06:002007-05-24T12:12:41.957-06:00

Fred PennerPaul MoserOur kids loved Fred Penner's show, and I'm proud that he's from the Canadian Prairies.Paul Moser at Loyola is doing some very interesting work on idolatry. (Very cool that he has excerpts from Thielicke, among others.) Is there something significant in Moser's theme of "The Return of the Prodigal" and Penner's signature song, "The Cat Came Back"?

randyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13271933716555045784noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15045473.post-14919438604345383132007-03-01T03:28:00.000-06:002007-03-01T03:43:12.421-06:00

Michael Pahl posts on certainty vs. conviction--good stuff. I'm working through Kellenberger's The Cognitivity of Religion and finding much to appreciate about his 3rd perspective, mediating between those of Kierkegaard and Aquinas, for example. His thesis is that discovery-realisation knowledge is different from enquiry-based knowledge. What he's saying has a lot to do with the kind of

randyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13271933716555045784noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15045473.post-11500218051673442922007-02-12T07:01:00.000-06:002007-01-24T07:18:45.149-06:00

Lonergan posits that all learning revolves around moments of insight, and I've had several of those lately. I've been wrestling with understanding what's at issue in what William Abraham (in Canon & Criterion and more recently in Crossing the Threshold) calls the epistemology of theology. Christopher Lutz (Tradition in the Ethics of MacIntyre, 120-21) says "MacIntyre defends a reading of Thomas

randyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13271933716555045784noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15045473.post-41145232796465958712007-01-13T05:03:00.000-06:002007-01-13T06:16:42.477-06:00

I was privileged to attend the Stapleford Centre's "Transforming Lives? Transforming Culture?" conference, held in the comfortable facilities of the Hayes Conference Centre in Swanwick, Derbyshire. I presented a seminar paper on "Transformation and Conversion in the Quest for Knowledge" (top marks if you recognise the allusion to Torrance's book), and was able to clarify for myself something of

randyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13271933716555045784noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15045473.post-58799835363379629222007-01-13T04:57:00.000-06:002007-01-13T05:03:19.315-06:00

This Periodic Table of Visualization Methods is really rich with possibilities for someone like me--I don't know if seeking to understand by "putting everything into a diagram" qualifies me as a visual learner, but that's often the only way I can figure out relationships & salience. Thanks to Nancy White for the link.

randyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13271933716555045784noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15045473.post-14575741507826965852006-12-07T04:10:00.000-06:002006-12-07T04:14:25.373-06:00

Heather recently made note of Celtx. I have wondered how a "storyboard" structure might work for instructional design, and this has me thinking about whether it might be useful in that kind of project. Something to look into when I return to work.

randyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13271933716555045784noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15045473.post-78070520197563195782006-12-01T11:24:00.000-06:002008-12-10T12:19:46.489-06:00

I've used Gliffy to produce this model, an heuristic metaphor that will help me envisage the structure of my thesis. What I want to do is this: as I write, I want to imagine a three-way dialogue among Torrance, Lonergan, and a "third conversation partner." That composite imaginary friend has been reading contemporary theologians (like Miroslav Volf, for example) whose approaches to "doing

randyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13271933716555045784noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15045473.post-48007174570413473292006-11-29T13:11:00.000-06:002007-01-24T07:18:45.178-06:00

I used Wikispaces to introduce to my classmates in the Centre for Theological Education some of the tools available for online learning, and questions around their application in our contexts. I had a good time, and there was good discussion of important issues, so I think it was a success. I'll know it was if discussion continues via the wiki.Then I opened my bloglines to surf for a bit when I

randyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13271933716555045784noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15045473.post-58448670641926478882006-11-29T13:05:00.000-06:002006-11-29T13:10:48.747-06:00

The kind folks at Wipf & Stock have sent me (in spite of the overseas shipping rates) a copy of Ted Newell's "Education Has Nothing to Do with Theology": James Michael Lee's Social Science Religious Instruction, Princeton Theological Monograph Series (Eugene, OR: Pickwick/Wipf & Stock, 2006) for review, so I've got some reading (& writing) to do--looking forward to it!

randyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13271933716555045784noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15045473.post-65688679395301605952006-11-27T12:27:00.000-06:002006-11-27T12:40:48.953-06:00

Boxing Day sales have become an expected, if unfortunate, part of our sadly shriveled western culture. I hadn't realized that Thanksgiving has succumbed, too. (No criticism meant of Dave Warlick--he's just the messenger.)Contrast this from David Guretzki, who explores the fatal choice in Eden as "an act of ingratitude!": I think of how small children (and maybe us more often than we want to

randyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13271933716555045784noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15045473.post-22925933443891478722006-11-25T13:24:00.000-06:002006-11-25T13:30:00.967-06:00

This is from David Smith’s address at Calvin College April, 2001:

randyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13271933716555045784noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15045473.post-82042284760408898422006-11-18T05:01:00.000-06:002006-11-18T05:37:27.135-06:00

Harry Daniels [Harry Daniels, Vygotsky and Pedagogy (London; New York: RoutledgeFalmer, 2001), 42, 43] reviews contemporary debate in ed. psych. on how the individual learns in/from community: “The critical issue is with respect to whether the resources that a collective culture embodies are regarded as fixed offerings from which the individual selects or they constitute the starting points for

randyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13271933716555045784noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15045473.post-1162062634903595302006-10-28T12:59:00.000-06:002006-10-28T13:10:34.916-06:00

This application looks like it could be very useful, and I like the way it uses tag clouds. I've thought that I need to organize my books somehow. It's probably a good thing that I'm so far from my library just now, or I'd be spending all my time putting LibraryThing to use. Of course, then I might have to justify keeping some of the books I own, and that could prove difficult.

randyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13271933716555045784noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15045473.post-1160396552498921092006-10-09T05:59:00.000-06:002006-10-09T06:23:45.573-06:00

From Nancey Murphy's “Using MacIntyre’s Method in Christian Ethics,” in Virtues and Practices in the Christian Tradition: Christian Ethics after MacIntyre, ed. Nancey Murphy, Brad J. Kallenberg, and Mark Thiessen Nation (Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press, 1997), 40:Paul M. Churchland has proposed to explain learning of all types by means of a model that relies on the notion of neural "prototypes";

randyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13271933716555045784noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15045473.post-1159371576484998162006-09-27T09:34:00.000-06:002006-09-27T09:39:36.486-06:00

I may be the last in the circle of my "blogosphere friends" to do so, but I'm now reading David Weinberger’s Small Pieces Loosely Joined on the web and really enjoying it. I'm coming to appreciate just how our world (and learning in that world) is being changed by the influence of the internet--or was it always thus and the internet has just cranked it up significantly?

randyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13271933716555045784noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15045473.post-1159303677326381362006-09-26T14:39:00.000-06:002006-09-26T14:47:57.340-06:00

I have a great appreciation for Nancey Murphy's work on science & theology, and was pleased to find this collection of essays and links to interviews. Unfortunately, I'm just an interested layperson when it comes to the natural sciences, and still feel very much like a neophyte in theology, so I'm not going to try to attend the STARS conference in Mexico where she will be one of the presenters.

randyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13271933716555045784noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15045473.post-1159303098973265372006-09-26T14:30:00.000-06:002006-09-27T09:41:43.830-06:00

Keith Johnson at Generous Orthodoxy ThinkTank links to Gordon Graham’s convocation speech at Princeton Seminary last Tuesday, a very interesting exploration of theological education, especially for me since I'm finally getting around to reading David Kelsey's work on Athens/Berlin. Graham situates the heart of theological education in discipleship. At the same blog, there's an entry by

randyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13271933716555045784noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15045473.post-1159301900168191282006-09-26T13:58:00.000-06:002006-09-27T09:33:42.330-06:00

Make that Lambeg, actually, once a village but now part of the growing, vibrant city of Lisburn. We've been here a month and are getting settled into our very nice home and community. (Our broadband was hooked up only a week ago, and that's the excuse for not blogging that I'm sticking with!) It has been quite an experience finding our way through the process of getting established in another

randyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13271933716555045784noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15045473.post-1151451616964046232006-06-27T17:32:00.000-06:002006-06-27T17:40:16.976-06:00

Man, I wish I were farther along in understanding Lonergan so that I could add his perspective to this great conversation going on between George Siemens and Stephen Downes. As I see it, Lonergan finds a new path (in reaction to a naive realism that says things are simply what they appear to be and avoiding the skepticism/solipsism of a radical intellectualism) by saying that objectivity grows

randyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13271933716555045784noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15045473.post-1150565391075492002006-06-17T11:27:00.000-06:002006-06-17T11:29:51.076-06:00

I had great plans for a big trip east, but a flat tire at Drinkwater and the change in wind direction while I got it fixed squashed that. I did manage to get in 400 km during the month, but all in short trips to Moose Jaw, Mortlach, and Buffalo Pound. One 40 km MJ round trip took me 1 hour 25 minutes, my best time so far.

randyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13271933716555045784noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15045473.post-1150565203084972002006-06-17T11:08:00.000-06:002006-06-17T11:26:43.096-06:00

This is really preliminary and sketchy, but I was thinking this morning about how Don Ihde says in _Experimental Phenomenology_ that, once we've noticed something about an object (as when, in a "gestalt change" we see from a new perspective what are popularly thought of as optical illusions), we can never see it simply in "the old way" again. Where Kuhn talks about a radical paradigm shift,

randyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13271933716555045784noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15045473.post-1147734812284982732006-05-15T17:11:00.000-06:002006-05-15T17:16:25.766-06:00

This from Dave Warlick, quoting Susan Patrick at the ncdla: Online expands options (high schools offer online course because otherwise they would not be available) Online learning is growing rapidly (30%/year) Online learning is effective (research shows that it is equal to or better than face-to-face) Online learning improves teaching You take a teacher who’s

randyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13271933716555045784noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15045473.post-1147099086418575842006-05-08T08:37:00.000-06:002006-05-08T17:52:35.736-06:00

I must be the last to post on this conference held April 30, May 1-2. (Sigh--such are the confessions of a procrastinator.) Rick summarizes nicely, with links. I enjoyed Curtis Bonk's presentations, though his style is a little too frenetic for me. If too much technology can be distracting, I think too much "pizzazz" may be, too. His practical ideas for online courses (adaptable for f2f & blended

randyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13271933716555045784noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15045473.post-1147099010455385262006-05-08T08:32:00.000-06:002006-05-08T08:36:50.476-06:00

In April, I cycled to Besant and back on the 5th, 10th, and 28th; one way to Buffalo Pound with Darcy on the 14th; to Chaplin & back on the 15th (saw a huge antelope near Parkbeg!); one way to Regina on the 20th; to Moose Jaw and back on the 22nd and 24th (_really_ cold--my water bottle froze!) and then back to MJ for supper. Finally, I made a quick trip to Boharm on the 3oth, so my grand total

randyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13271933716555045784noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15045473.post-1144706453380824602006-04-10T15:50:00.000-06:002006-04-10T16:00:53.410-06:00

One of the important things in Lonergan is the way he, unquestionably, begins from the standpoint of the knower, but claims that, once we have come to reasonable certainty through rigorous thinking (including what is now being called metacognition), we have come to a defensible "objective" position. George Siemens, in a recent post, approaches this when he says, "The more precisely something can

randyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13271933716555045784noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15045473.post-1144682605848688972006-04-10T09:22:00.000-06:002006-04-13T17:15:18.050-06:00

Denham Grey is working on Social Knowledge (wiki); Clarence Fisher, in a post on the educational potential of gaming, says about community: "A community needs to be nurtured and grown. It cannot be created, it must create itself over time. It can be fed and helped along, but for a true community to emerge takes time, understanding, and knowledge of models of growth."

randyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13271933716555045784noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15045473.post-1144270404162524992006-04-05T14:49:00.000-06:002006-04-05T14:53:24.173-06:00

Some excellent advice from Karen Schwalm: "Teaching, with technology or without it, is a constant 'punch and feint,' trying one approach, measuring the response and impact, trying another approach, rethinking and redesigning the activity, getting feedback from students and really listening to it, trying again. Cool tools provide us more options, and we can create and re-create things quickly.

randyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13271933716555045784noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15045473.post-1144258720603770562006-04-05T11:37:00.000-06:002006-04-10T16:15:45.606-06:00

Excellent post by Christopher Sessums the other day--it resonates so much with what I want to promote in and among theological institutions.Here is my paper given at the Abilene conference (in pbwiki).

randyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13271933716555045784noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15045473.post-1144251153302669052006-04-05T09:19:00.000-06:002006-04-05T09:33:33.050-06:00

I'm on our Anti-Harassment Committee and am helping with a presentation to our faculty council this morning. As part of the discussion, Jacqueline is giving the "Top 10 clues that a student is infatuated with you."

randyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13271933716555045784noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15045473.post-1143936285585778802006-04-01T17:59:00.000-06:002006-04-03T08:03:32.856-06:00

A quick change of subject because I also want to use this blog space to remember my adventures in cycling. I was to Moose Jaw & back Saturday am (and then played an April fool's joke on both kids, saying my bike had been stolen) and then again on Sunday. So far this year, I have made trips from Maple Creek to the Cypress Hills park on January 8 and to Regina (one way) on January 26. I couldn't

randyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13271933716555045784noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15045473.post-1143935856489562842006-04-01T17:35:00.000-06:002006-04-01T17:57:38.406-06:00

Hauerwas was his usual irrascible, boundary-pushing self. He set the tone with his "Theological Knowledge and the Knowledges of the University."Billy Abraham, in his "Theology in the University in a Hobbesian World," helped me see where my overly optimistic views need a corrective. He notes that higher ed in North America operates on a 2-track system where scholars either dismiss revelation

randyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13271933716555045784noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15045473.post-1143934502001936672006-04-01T17:09:00.000-06:002006-04-01T17:35:13.186-06:00

Back from the conference and recovering from the drive to Texas, I'm finally getting around to updating my blog. I really have to find some way to do this on a more regular basis. Anyway, the conference was good--a first for Abilene Christian University's grad school, but well handled by point man Fred Aquino. From all I heard there, he's doing a great job of promoting conversations across

randyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13271933716555045784noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15045473.post-1143081097150518732006-03-22T20:23:00.000-06:002006-03-22T20:38:35.700-06:00

We left our house just after 4 am Tuesday and got to North Platte just after 7 pm. When we crossed the border from North to South Dakota, we started seeing the snow along the road and it got worse and worse. The roads were fine, but the snow! Here's a pic from Valentine, Nebraska:Along the way, there were hundreds of meadowlarks on the shoulders of the highway. I wonder if they got stranded on

randyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13271933716555045784noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15045473.post-1142045081488472932006-03-10T20:25:00.000-06:002006-03-10T20:44:41.516-06:00

I'm finding it very difficult to find a time to post, so now my lack of will is evident to anyone who wants to check out the dates of previous postings.Anyway . . . what George Siemens has been saying about connectivism was brought home to me this week when one day I got an email from George, who was so gracious as to read & comment on a paper I'm giving later this month, and another from Heidi

randyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13271933716555045784noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15045473.post-1141358527641418102006-03-02T21:57:00.000-06:002006-03-02T22:02:07.673-06:00

It's been a while since I posted anything here. I'm planning to pick it up again and post regularly, taking the all-important step from being a lurker/consumer of others' blogs to taking up writing for understanding. The biggest problem is that I have such a hard time writing and publishing anything that I haven't spent a lot of time thinking about and refining. Maybe this will be an opportunity

randyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13271933716555045784noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15045473.post-1129822203654662822005-10-20T09:20:00.000-06:002005-10-20T09:30:03.660-06:00

Douglas Groothius says, "Reality demands an attentiveness that multi-tasking does not allow. Human beings especially tend to be opaque and mysterious beings, whose inner recesses are not easily discerned. We can push a key and make the computer or cell phone do something. We cannot push a key and understand or help change a human being. That kind of being requires more attention, more patience,

randyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13271933716555045784noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15045473.post-1126040679475140372005-09-06T15:02:00.000-06:002005-09-06T15:04:39.480-06:00

T. F. Torrance has several references to the kind of thing I'm talking about in his The Mediation of Christ (pp. 9, 12, 25, 49, 101).

randyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13271933716555045784noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15045473.post-1123713966864415262005-08-10T16:42:00.000-06:002005-09-06T15:06:20.780-06:00

Brian Alger at the Experience Designer Network says this in a post entitled, "Learning is a Global Phenomenon":"We can best explore the multiplicity of learning by bringing ourselves into close proximity to the stories of people's lives that in some manner inform our own. This notion seems strikingly obvious and deceptively simplistic. I do not mean that we focus our intention on mere biography

randyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13271933716555045784noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15045473.post-1123167577980139082005-08-04T08:48:00.000-06:002005-08-04T09:16:22.936-06:00

Fascinating interview with Dan Sperber; I've just finished Philip Clayton's Mind & Emergence (and most of the essays in In Whom we Live & Move & Have Our Being). I'll have to take some time to reflect on how emergence in the process of thinking and Sperber's theory of conversation come together--perhaps via Etienne Wenger's idea of knowledge residing not only in individuals' minds (identity) but

randyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13271933716555045784noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15045473.post-1123078049622459192005-08-03T08:06:00.000-06:002005-08-03T08:07:29.623-06:00

I've been reading David Kelsey's and others' (including Peter Hodgson's) work on theological education and coming to appreciate some of the nuances re: the difference between the goal of education as paideia and as social transformation—interesting in the light of the difference between personal and social constructivism. Kelsey contrasts the university as a place for the cultivation of virtue (

randyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13271933716555045784noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15045473.post-1123077990353966132005-08-03T08:05:00.000-06:002005-08-03T08:06:30.353-06:00

David Knowlton (2002, with James Thorne and Harry Harriss 2002, and with Suzanne Shaffer 2004) argues that a constructivist philosophy and pedagogy is not inconsistent with the principles and practice of Christian education. What Knowlton and his colleagues do not do in these articles is put forward criteria whereby such a claim can be judged against Christian theology. What is missing here is

randyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13271933716555045784noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15045473.post-1123077930082369822005-08-03T08:03:00.000-06:002005-08-03T08:05:30.086-06:00

Gabriel Fackre talks about 3 poles of authority in theology: Scripture, tradition, & experience. Astute observers will notice the correspondence with the so-called Wesleyan quadrilateral, with the omission of reason as a source of authority. It is reasonable to assume that reason, especially if it includes what Michael Polanyi called personal or tacit knowledge, undergirds each of the other three

randyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13271933716555045784noreply@blogger.com0