friday reflection

Catching up on my Inside Higher Ed this morning, I read that Laurence Musgrove thinks our students need "not more Facebook, but more faces in books". Here here! While I enjoy the way that technology can help us deliver and access information and I especially enjoy the way it lets me see hilarious videos silly people around the world have created, let's face it: our college and university students are here to learn. Everyone needs time for quiet reflection as well as stimulating discussion in order to learn. Everyone needs to take in, consider, analyze and communicate. I'm not saying "ban Facebook" or anything like that. I am not completely crazy. I'm merely saying that besides offering lots of internet bandwidth, we need to provide good spaces for quiet study, lots of interesting materials in various formats, and a gentle hand to guide our students to both of those things.