Service in the City: Cleaning Staff

Continuing the Service in the City series, today we'll be talking to Marge who works for an office cleaning company. Surely you didn't think your garbage can was emptied by helpful elves?

For the Love of the Game: A Look at Fans and Disappointment

What does it mean to be a baseball fan? To exchange high fives with complete strangers utterly swept away with the exhilaration of a win? To sit in your car, despondent, after a devastating loss? What is the fan’s connection to this game—billed as America’s pastime?

Before delving into this post, it’s only fair to report that I myself am a fan. So this is in part a self-reflexive exercise to investigate some of my own responses to the team I follow. Consequently, I can’t guarantee an objective perspective here, but it will be honest. And I’m interested in learning if these ideas can be applied to sports in other places—so feel free to chime in at the end.

Bullying and Emotional Intelligence on the Web

Formspring, a recent entry into the social networking milieu, is finally beginning to attract mainstream attention as parents and educators have to deal with the fallout from preteens and teens who are confronted with ugly criticism on the site. Formspring allows users to post and answer questions, some of which are rather personal. And as users link the site to Facebook and other popular social networking sites, they open themselves up to comments and questions from any number of people who can post anonymously if they so choose. Sexual history, bra size, and more are all fair game on the site. Questions are delivered to the user's inbox, and the user decides which to answer. Answered questions appear on the user's profile, and a surprising number of answered questions are of the anonymously submitted personal variety. Why? And what does this signify about the state of emotional intelligence with regard to the web?

When The Human Network is a Digital One

Cisco's recent advertising campaign, featuring actress Ellen Page, has focused on the human network—a network that grows decidedly more digital with each passing day. The four Cisco ads take viewers on a tour through Lunenburg, Nova Scotia where Page visits familiar haunts and remarks on how things have changed since her last visit. The common thread in her wonderment? The connectivity of digital media.

Dealing With "Digital Distractions" in the Classroom

Apparently, an increasing number of colleges and professors are banning laptops in their classrooms, citing poor grades and general distraction. These are definitely issues worth consideration, but the article raises a good point counterpoint:

For years, educators have been clamoring to put technology in the hands of young students through partnerships with big tech companies, best symbolized by the One Laptop Per Child initiative. But by the time those kids grow up, they might well find university authorities waging a war on laptops in the classroom.

Is a blanket ban on laptops really a realistic means of dealing with perceived digital distractions in the classroom—or does it it actually create a deficit in terms of learning?