Dewey on educative power

All communication is like art. It may fairly be said, therefore, that any social arrangement that remains vitally social, or vitally shared, is educative to those who participate in it. Only when it becomes cast in a mold and runs in a routine way does it lose its educative power. - John Dewey, Democracy and Education

I wonder what Dewey would have thought of the LMS…

Yet Another Bike Commute Video

manfrotto_superclampI’ve been farting around with a Manfrotto Super Clamp to attach a camera to my bike to experiment with techniques to document the Ride to Conquer Cancer. I’ve got a bunch of stuff to try, but I’m getting closer to something that I’m happy with.

Here’s the first half of my ride home from UCalgary campus through the streets of NW Calgary – sped up about 3x. I was averaging between 30-40km/h for this portion of the ride.

(video doesn’t show up in RSS feed. grumble.)

I still have a few things to figure out – the clamp isn’t quite level, so I need to MacGuyver a way to level the thing so the footage isn’t all leaning to one side – but it’s getting close.

Dewey on society

Persons do not become a society by living in physical proximity, any more than a man ceases to be socially influenced by being so many feet or miles removed from others. A book or a letter may institute a more intimate association between human beings separated thousands of miles from each other than exists between dwellers under the same roof. - John Dewey, 1916, Democracy and Education

The quote is almost 100 years old. I wonder what Dewey would have thought about the Internet, email, IM, blogs, and tweets…