If you haven’t heard, Kindle is Amazon.com’s new digital device that allows you to read books on the go. The device features a glare-free screen based on electronic paper technology. According to Amazon, the screen can be read even in bright sunlight and is as easy on the eyes as reading text on paper. In addition, Kindle can download books by connecting to Sprint’s high-speed wireless network, but it doesn’t require a monthly service plan because the data download fees are built in to the price of each book. Amazon also claims users can read thousands of pages before needing to recharge the device, and that the battery will last for about two days with its wireless network access left on.

During a recent consulting session with an instructor about her upcoming blended-delivery course, our discussion turned toward which learning activities would best serve students when delivered online vs. those that would best serve students when delivered in the classroom.

It’s an interesting question: What unique learning attributes are contained in a room that—for a period of time—contains one instructor and a group of students?

Both the low marketability of arts degrees and the low salaries of arts educators in our society, when compared to the marketability of degrees and salaries of educators in science or technology topics, reflect an attitude towards the arts that sees them as accessories to our lives, good mainly for entertainment, pleasure, or escape. This attitude frequently undermines arts education funding and is, for some, due to the admitted difficulty non-artists and artists alike face when trying to assess success in arts education and production with measures that make sense to and can be appreciated by “non believers.”

A couple of weeks ago, I attended the Computers and Advanced Technology in Education conference in Beijing, a city where I went to college 20 years ago. To me, it felt a bit strange to hear the familiar subjects—new instructional tools and pedagogical methods—being discussed in an ancient city of China, which has become so modernized that I could barely recognize it. At the conference, the clear divide between the technical and pedagogical tracks reminded me of the disparity between modern technology and the historical cultural roots of China. Almost all of the presentations delivered by Chinese scholars focused on technology, and most of the technologically focused papers seemed to shy away from any deep analysis of the pedagogical impact of these technologies. This made me wonder, ‘Where were those insightful learning theories developed in China thousands years ahead of the west? Where was Confucius and his philosophy of teaching and learning?’