Elizabeth Madigan's blog

Summer reading--recommendations needed

Sat, 09 Jul 2005 14:06:17 EST

As the School of Nursing's Associate Dean for International Health, I decided I needed to get more depth of my understanding on the larger internationalization trends. The health pieces I understand in some depth with my contacts at WHO, PAHO and the international nursing and health communities.
I "read"* Thomas Friedman's "Longitudes and Attitudes: The World in the Age of Terrorism" (2003) and am now almost finishing "The Lexus and the Olive Tree." I like Friedman's approach because he clearly identifies the intertwining of the political and economic but also with the environmental and, most importantly, cultural. It all has special relevance this week because of the London bombings.

I also read Tracy Kidder's "Mountains Beyond Mountains" which is the campus read for fall term SAGES. Kidder certainly nails the WHO which he describes as bureaucratic and risk averse. He doesn't really identify an alternative, however, and it shouldn't be too surprising that a politically-bound and -dependent international body would be conservative and risk averse. See also the UN...

So what other books should I be digging into during my summer reading extravaganza? Anything that counters Tom Friedman's focus on the market-driven capitalist system but is not a manifesto?

*"read" as in listened to on tape in the car, unabridged, read by the author, which was enjoyable. (Some authors should not read their own work--this is not the case here.)

What is a blog; what is the use in higher education?

Thu, 12 May 2005 01:50:38 EST

I am teaching an intensive this week to doctoral level students and one of the questions on the one minute evaluation is "what is a blog?" so the short answer is--a personal or professional collection of notes and sundry other writings. Most are textual, although there are increasing blogs that include multimedia and graphics. What are the educational uses in higher education? The most obvious is the reflective pieces that we try to encourage (force?) students to provide in the thought that by writing about one's reactions to the world and events, we can develop a certain amount of introspection. It's like the old saw: you can lead a horse to water but cannot make him drink.
We can force students to develop these kinds of written pieces but cannot make them thoughtful or reflective. (Although we may be encouraging good fiction writing!)
There are increasing numbers of faculty using weblogs for educational purposes. The evidence for their effectiveness is what I have not seen. Have any of you? I am looking for beyond the anecdotal.

I'm officially blogging now I guess!

Tue, 11 Jan 2005 17:06:40 EST

Here we go--first entry. The real challenges are:
1. what will I blog on
2. how often will I blog
3. will anyone even read it?

The questions of bloggers everywhere I suppose!