After the November election, it was determined that the nation was in the grip of a crisis of “fake news” centered around an uncontrolled new media (consisting of blogs, social networks, and other sources that bypass traditional “real news” outlets) delivering false information that threatens to not just dupe the public, but lead us into a “post-truth” age. It would be Continue Reading …
One-on-One
Young Boy: Dad, why is there racism? Dad (overcoming initial anxiety): Well, son [followed by a thoughtful, if somewhat pat, answer to the question—one that is sensitive to the child’s age]. Boy: Thanks, Dad! Hey, can we go to McDonald's? Dad: McDonald’s is bad for you. Let’s eat somewhere that won’t make you sick. Boy: But the Andersons go to McDonald's all the Continue Reading …
Critical Thinking and/or Philosophy?
On the surface, what links Critical Voter (the book that uses the election as an educational tool to teach critical thinking skills—free on Amazon July 12 and the 19th) and Degree of Freedom (which tried to see how far one could push massive open online courses) is the belief that as new modes of technology-driven learning come to the fore, those who can take advantage of them Continue Reading …
Fixing Our Beliefs
When I turned that Critical Voter curriculum mentioned last time into a book [which PEL readers can get free from Amazon every Tuesday between now and July 19], the goal was to use election politics as a case study to teach critical thinking skills without playing favorites or picking winners. Even so, it’s hard to make logical arguments using real-world political examples that Continue Reading …
Critical Voter
During the last Presidential election, I noticed a trend in philosophy columns, like one I was enjoying in the New York Times, where philosophical concepts and arguments were brought to bear on political opinions that seemed already set in Stone (sorry about that). For instance, when the President fumbled during the first debate in 2012 (which shocked many, given Obama’s Continue Reading …
Degree of Freedom
I discovered PEL in 2013 while engaged in a quixotic experiment in online education involving a form of learning making headlines at the time: Massive Open Online Courses (or MOOCs). MOOCs came on the scene a couple of years earlier, after professors at Stanford were stunned when free online courses they offered to the world drew in hundreds of thousands of participants. The Continue Reading …