Learning Ecosystems

From DSC:
This posting has a spectrum of perspectives/content on it.  First some faith-based items:

Description

Is it possible to know the world and still love the world? Of all the questions we ask about our calling, this is the most difficult. From marriages to international relations, the more we know, the harder it is to love. We become cynics or stoics, protecting our hearts from the implications of what we know. But what if the vision of vocation can be recovered—allowing us to step into the wounds of the world and for love’s sake take up our responsibility for the way the world turns out? For decades Steve Garber has come alongside a wide range of people as they seek to make sense of the world and their lives. With him we meet leaders from the Tiananmen Square protest who want a good reason to still care about China. We also meet with many ordinary people in ordinary places who long for their lives to matter:

• Jonathan who learned he would rather build houses than study history
• Todd and Maria who adopted creative schedules so they could parent better and practice medicine
• D.J. who helped Congress move into the Internet Age
• Robin who spends her life on behalf of urban justice
• Hans who makes hamburgers the way they are meant to be made
• Susan who built a home business of hand-printing stationary using a letterpress
• Santiago who works with majority-world nations in need of capital
• George who has given years to teaching students to learn things that matter most
• Claudius and Deirdre whose openhearted home has always been a place for people
• Dan who loves Wyoming, the place, its people and its cows

Vocation is when we come to know the world in all its joy and pain and still love it. Vocation is following our calling to seek the welfare of the world we live in. And in helping the world to flourish, strangely, mysteriously, we find that we flourish too. Garber offers a book for everyone everywhere—for students, for parents, for those in the arts, in the academy, in public service, in the trades and in commerce—for all who want to discover the virtue of vocation.

From DSC:
Some quotes from the book:

“It is possible to get all A’s and still flunk life.”

“From mime artists in Paris, to attorneys walking the killing fields of Rwanda, to young, eager human rights activists in Washington, to graduate students at at Yale, how does one learn  to see with the eyes of the heart, to see oneself as responsible for the way the world is and isn’t? Not a cheap question, and there are no cheap answers.”

From DSC:
The above book was recommended to me by the Director of CIC NetVUE, Dr. Shirley Roels.  For more information about CIC NetVUE, see the items below:

NetVUE is a nationwide network of colleges and universities committed to enriching the intellectual and theological exploration of vocation among undergraduate students.

• Deepen the understanding of the intellectual and theological dimensions of vocational exploration;
• Examine the role of vocational exploration in a variety of institutional contexts;
• Share knowledge, best practices, and reflection on experiences across participating campuses;
• Develop a network for sustaining an extended program in the intellectual and theological exploration of vocation; and
• Facilitate the incorporation of additional colleges and universities into this enterprise.

Now, for some items that are not (necessarily) faith-related:

Blackboard Debuts Free College and Career Guidance App — from thejournal.com by Joshua Bolkan

Excerpt:

Blackboard has a released a free mobile app, Job Genie, designed to help students explore career paths and college options.”The app is a result of qualitative research with students that indicated a large amount of apprehension around key academic decisions, such as picking a school, major or career path,” according to a news release. “Designed to be a non-threatening way to explore various education and job options, the app uses casual language and aesthetics to reinforce that these choices are part of a journey and that students should not feel locked into a single recommendation.”

Be Employed When You Gradate –a book by Jonathan Blake Huer (2014)

Excerpt:

College isn’t about getting a job; it’s about earning a degree. So, when do students learn how to find meaningful employment? From choosing a major to negotiating a job offer, author and educator, Jonathan Blake Huer, offers his perspective to finding your way through today’s job market in his first book, Be Employed When You Graduate.

The advice and exercises in each chapter offer an honest and practical guide to setting measurable professional goals in college, and how to transform those experiences into internships, freelance positions and post-graduate jobs.