A Mindful Approach to Technology

in Jewish Education
 Central
Arguments

Final A Mindful
Thoughts Approach

http://www.flickr.com/photos/petrilli/524469845/

Approach in
Reflection
Action
Digital Endless Just-So-
Natives Possibilities Stories
Digital Natives

:
There are also no
such things as
“digital natives.”

http://www.flickr.com/photos/45688888@N08/4191381737/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/wfryer/2959807121/
 Understanding
technology
requires learning.

danah boyd, “It is easy to fall in love with

technology…”
http://wp.nmc.org/future/ideas/danah-boyd/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/center_for_jewish_history/4423194804/
“For older learners our fear of
failure is sometimes so acute,
we don’t allow ourselves to fail
during any step of the process.
At least when it comes to
technology, younger learners
seem to have an ease about
failing early and often on their
path to mastery.”

-Williams,
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/answer-
sheet/technology/why-technology-scares-some-of.html http://www.flickr.com/photos/zephyrance/2865451246/
Endless Possibilities

:
 the more we
learn to
conform to the
available
choices, the more
predictable and
machine-like we
become
ourselves.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/thorinside/2241
86451/
We train ourselves to stay between the
lines, like an image dragged onto a “snap-
to" grid: it never stays quite where we
put it, but jerks up and over to the
closest available place on the
predetermined map.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/stefanobe/2536181741/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/nittpick/37
Friends and feeds we may have chosen
arbitrarily or because we were forced in the
past, soon become the markers through
which our programs and search engines
choose what to show us next.
010101010101010101010101010101
010101010101010101010101010101
010101010101010101010101010101
101010101010101010101010101010
010101010101010101010101010101
010101010101010101010101010101
Our choices narrow our world, as the
010101010101010101010101010101
infinity of possibility is lost in the
010101010101010101010101010101
translation to binary code.
010101010101010101010101010101
Douglas Rushkoff, Program or be Programmed,
101010101010101010101010101010
http://www.boingboing.net/2010/09/27/program-or-be-progra.html
 EdgeRank
Affinity
Time Decay
𝑢𝑒 𝑤𝑒 𝑑𝑒
𝑒 Weight
Edge
Just-So_Stories

:
This just-so explanation is entirely

retrospective in character.
Looking back in time… it appears perfectly logical
that the free-spinning wheel would cause a change
from rope coiling to drawing up a pot, but how could
the person who first replaced his or her gourd with a
stone know what we know?

http://www.flickr.com/photos/smithsonian/2553825128/
Perhaps the potter was puzzled, perhaps
exhilarated—which are more engaged states of
consciousness than “it had to happen just like this.”
Richard Sennett, The Craftsman, p. 122
To use technology or not
to use technology…

http://www.flickr.com/photos/taylorhood/59867611/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/nationalmaritimemuseum/3 http://www.flickr.com/photos/24443965@N08/2649932391/

837184514/

…should not be the question.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/purplemattfish/3141017889/
 What is the nature of
community?

What are the needs

How do we
of the 21st Century
understand personal
learner and how is
identity?
learning transmitted?

http://www.flickr.com/photos/brianglanz/2383687233/
 Open-
Minded-
ness
Collective Loving
Respons- and
ibility Caring

Seven
Synergies of
Mindful
Integrative
and Teaching Stopping
Harmonizing

Authentic Professional
Alignment Expertise

MacDonald & Shirley, 2009

Recognizing Opportunities and
Accepting Complexity
Allowing Emotional Longings
and Aspirations
 Pausing and
Taking an Inner Account

http://www.flickr.com/photos/astroguy/2453830302/
 Deep and Thorough
Understanding

http://www.flickr.com/photos/smithsonian/2548928970/
Ethical Conviction and
Action
Skillful Blending
Educators and Communities

http://www.flickr.com/photos/kubina/471164507/
bit.ly/nate-7syn Open-
Minded-
ness
Collective Loving
Respons- and
ibility Caring

Seven
Synergies of
Mindful
Integrative
and Teaching Stopping
Harmonizing

Authentic Professional
Alignment Expertise

MacDonald & Shirley, 2009

 Find

Connect Publish

Collect Share
Inquiry Dialogue
http://www.zunal.com/
“A webquest is an assignment which
asks students to use the World Wide
Web to learn about and/or synthesize
their knowledge (of) a specific topic.”

Source: http://www.teachersfirst.com/summer/webquest/quest-b.shtml
Introduction
Task
Process
Evaluation
Conclusion
http://www.voicethread.com/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/runran/3357279334/
 It’s really easy to get in
the habit of seeing a new
shiny piece of technology and
just assume that we can
dump it into an educational
setting and !voila! miracles
will happen .

http://www.flickr.com/photos/kansasphoto/2917436006/
Yet, we also know that the
field of dreams is merely
that, a dream.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/werkunz/3599784525/
Dumping laptops into a classroom does no
good if a teacher doesn’t know how to
leverage the technology for educational
purposes. Building virtual worlds serves
no educational purpose without curricula
that connects a lesson plan with the
affordances of the technology.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/mr_beaver/4343206061/
 What is the nature of
community?

What are the needs

How do we
of the 21st Century
understand personal
learner and how is
identity?
learning transmitted?
 http://www.flickr.com/photos/jenosaur/4051305996/
Jeremy Price
Doctoral Candidate
Technology and Science
Education
jeremy.price@bc.edu

http://bit.ly/nate-jfp