JosephBustillos.com — Musings on Education, Technology, Pop Culture, Religion & Staying Curious

Too Much Information: Eyes to See [video fridays]

I was going to write a very different post for today... but a student shared this video in her blog (thanks T Slechta) and it seemed to communicate one of the things that we wish that all of this technology would give us: eyes to really see those around us and connect in a meaningful way. Enjoy... and reach out and hug those around you. Sources: Youtube video: Paradigm Shift Uploaded by jenneylou on Oct 28, 2010 An awesome video for which I cannot claim credit. In fact, I received this… [more]
Too Much Information: Being Plugged In and Meaningful Friendships

I had this one friend, when I was a kid, who always responded the same way when my mom asked if he wanted to stay for dinner. Let me call my mom and see what she's making for dinner, he'd say. He didn't mean anything by his response, but I later learned that mom felt that it was kind of a rude response. One doesn't examine ones options when invited for dinner. Who knew? Today we might call this FOMO, or "Fear of Missing Out" syndrome, where one evaluates ones social opportunities often when engaged… [more]
Too Much Information: The Value of Organized Education in the Era of Everything on the Internet

In June of 2008, when I first began working at Full Sail, I ran across an article about a Texas professor who decided to make his whole course available online because he believed that just having access to the course materials was not nearly as important as access to the professor or the learning community. I copied the link down, but when I later went looking for the article, it had been pulled down. There are those who believe that one is giving away everything if one does what this Texas professor… [more]
Too Much Information: A More Productive Model than Getting Info via the Fire-hose that is RSS

It may just be nostalgia, but when I think about how I stay informed I always go back to memories of my dad reading the LA Times in the morning and watching TV news in the evening and that being enough. Granted, it is kind of part of my job to stay on top of a large host of information but it seems like I just can't quite seem to get a meaningful handle on this. There has to be a more productive way of staying informed that doesn't require trying to drink from the fire-hose that is RSS based feeds. On… [more]
What Do Online Educators Do: Teacher Appreciation/What Do You Make? [video fridays]

None of these videos are directly about online education or online educators, but then, you should know that whatever qualities that are thank-worthy with traditional teachers holds true for online educators as well. The first on the list is an oldie, but a goodie, from educator turned slam-poet, Taylor Mali. Enjoy.… [more]
What Do Online Educators Do: The Mythical Boundary between Personal Life and Work Life

You don't have to be an online educator to have boundary issue betweens ones work life and personal life. I've known my fair share of educators, elementary educators, who seemed to only have their work life and nothing else, living only for what they did for their students. Of course there were also those who were scarcely there when they were there and they had to be reminded to not run over their students or parents as they raced out of the parking lot at the end of the day. I came to teaching… [more]
What Do Online Educators Do: More Connected and Not Limited to Any Place or Time

As I mentioned in the previous post, there appears to be a lot confusion about what education is supposed to look like today, adding an online spin to the subject only makes matters worse. It should be obvious that the problem is that none of us can nostalgically look back at our online school experience and use that as a measure about whether kids today are getting as good an online education as we got. What? Well, isn't that how we measure whether one is getting a good education: all based on our… [more]
What Do Online Educators Do: Tools of the Trade

Many years ago, when I was describing my job as a tech specialist at my school to an in-law she responded with a dismissive, Oh, so you're not really a teacher anymore. Wow, talk about taking the air out of my sails. There are so many wrong headed and largely nostalgic notions about what educators do that it's not too surprising that adding the online element pretty much breaks everyones' brains. So, this week we're going to explore this curious thought, "What Do online educators do," beginning with… [more]
No Witty Observations Or Piercing Insights This Week

So... you might have noticed that there haven't been any new blog posts this week. Most non-pro bloggers don't keep to any kind of schedule, but I've been trying since the beginning of the year to have at least five posts per week and more recently one post per category (tech, education, media, lifestyle) per week. Alas, as we were finishing last week I was scrambling to produce several videos for the class that I teach at Full Sail and that kept me pretty busy. As Monday turned to Tuesday I thought… [more]
Video Fridays: 森の木琴 wood in the woods playing music

I found out about this next video from a good friend and fellow Pepperdine OMAET graduate, Greg Thompson. It's a rather creative performance art video that turns into a commercial for a cell phone. I much prefer this kind of beauty to the ads which make fun of their competitors customers... Ack. Anyway, I hope you've enjoyed this week's music-centric blog posts. Please feel free to leave comments and suggestions below and plus-1/like the blog on the social networks. It's good to hear from y'all.… [more]

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