#Impact on Education

[rajthebloggersblog]

How Digital Equity Can Help Education And Society In 2024 And Beyond?

In this blog, we’ll explore the concept of digital equity and its potential to transform education and society in 2024 and beyond. We’ll examine the challenges posed by the digital divide and propose solutions to bridge this gap, fostering a more inclusive and prosperous future for all.  Introduction:  In today’s interconnected world, digital technology plays a pivotal role in shaping education…

[ecoamerica]

Apply or nominate: https://ecoamerica.org/american-climate-leadership-awards-2025/

Calling all organizations, individuals, and small businesses successfully engaging Americans on climate! Showcase your creativity and climate solutions by applying for @ecoamerica’s 2025 American Climate Leadership Awards. You can win $1K - $50K by submitting your efforts for consideration by a stellar line-up of judges and individuals leading on climate. It’s quick and easy to submit your application or nominate inspirational climate leaders. Apply or nominate today!

[top-university-india]

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been the talk of the town for a long time now. Everyone has their own theories and ways of looking at it. For example, if someone benefits from it, they may view it as a good innovation, while others may view it as a bad change that will eventually harm humanity. ChatGPT is a new addition to the discussion.

[bananakeiky]

genshin be like trans kid with mommy issues gets a new mommy

[ignitesthestxrs]

there's something about the way people talk about john gaius (incl the way the author writes him) that is like. so absent of any connection to te ao māori that it's really discomforting. like even in posts that acknowledge him as not being white, they still talk about him like a white, american leftist guy in a way that makes it clear people just AREN'T perceiving him as a māori man from aotearoa.

and it's just really serves to hammer home how powerful and pervasive whiteness and american hegemony is. because TLT is probably the single most Kiwi series in years to explode on the global stage, and all the things i find fraught about it as a pākehā woman reading a series by a pākehā author are illegible to a greater fandom of americans discoursing about whether or not memes are a valid way of portraying queer love.

idk the part of my brain that lights up every time i see a capital Z printed somewhere because of the New Zealand Mentioned??? instinct will always be proud of these books and muir. but i find myself caught in this midpoint of excitement and validation over my culture finding a place on the global stage, frustration at how kiwi humour and means of conveying emotion is misinterpreted or declared facile by an international audience, frustrated also by how that international audience runs the characters in this book through a filter of american whiteness before it bothers to interpret them, and ESPECIALLY frustrated by how muir has done a pretty middling job of portraying te ao māori and the māoriness of her characters, but tht conversation doesn't circulate in the same way* because a big part of the audience doesn't even realise the conversation is there to be had.

which is not to say that muir has done a huge glaring racism that non-kiwis haven't noticed or anything, but rather that there are very definitely things that she has done well, things that she has done poorly, things that she didn't think about in the first book that she has tacked on or expanded upon in the later books, that are all worthy of discussion and critique that can't happen when the popular posts that float past my dash are about how this indigenous man is 'guy who won't shut up about having gone to oxford'

*to be clear here, i'm not saying these conversations have never happened, just that in terms of like, ambient posts that float round my very dykey dash, the discussions and meta that circulate on this the lesbian social media, are overwhelmingly stripped of any connection to aotearoa in general, let alone te ao māori in specific. and because of the nature of american internet hegemony this just,,,isn't noticed, because how does a fish know it's in the ocean u know? i have seen discussions along these lines come up, and it's there if i specifically go looking for it, but it's not present in the bulk of tlt content that has its own circulatory life and i jut find that grim and a part of why the fandom is difficult to engage with.

[asbestos-11]

that one post that's doing rounds on twitter is made for me and my fellow mpreg enjoyers.

the twitter post in question. made by user tarraerae

[rebelcaptain4life]

If you weren't Pro-Palestine already, I hope the fact that the US government is literally trying to censor people that don't agree with them opens your eyes

[indexvirus]

[meimyr-dawn]

Haven’t really been engaging with that much Genshin stuff because I’m so bummed about natlan…..

Like it all sucks, but speaking about something I have personal connection to:

I want to like Mualani (the white-hair, shark girl)….her name is from on a real Hawaiian chieftess, it’s also very close to my IRL name (Meilani)….also I freaking love sharks.

I want to be excited at cultural representation. But as an (admittedly white passing) mixed-Hawaiian myself—I’m just sad—not even at my palest in the midst of winter am I that pale. It feels like a betrayal to reference different cultures but not earnestly portray the people within.

Anyway, no hate to anyone who does like her, but please keep an open heart for your POC genshin friends or content creators who are sad and angry.

[ecoamerica]

Watch the 2024 American Climate Leadership Awards for High School Students now: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5C-bb9PoRLc

@ecoamerica was excited to announce the ACLA24 High School Student winner, Adah Crandall! Early high school graduate Adah is a climate justice organizer who focuses on the intersection of climate and transportation. Watch the student finalists, Aishah-Nyeta Brown, Jerome Foster II, and more in the ACLA24 for High School Students Broadcast Recording!

[pinkiepie20000]

IM GONNA GFYCKING SQYIRTTTTTTTTT

[oidheadh-con-culainn]

strongly dislike the hyperbolic violence of a punitive justice system that seems to be how the internet responds to any bad thing because. the implications of being like "the person who cut down this tree should be tortured to death/put through a wood chipper/hanged/locked up forever"... do you really think that would help? do you think a tree, however special, is worth more than a human life? do you think an act like this negates the possibility of that person ever doing anything good and contributing to the world? do you think it is your right to declare somebody irredeemable?

you're being hyperbolic, i hope, but the underlying mindset of "bad thing = physically hurt this person and take away their future" could use some interrogating, actually! that's not an effective way of dealing with things! it's not going to put the tree back up, it's not going to help the environment, it's only going to cause additional harm. and that is the thing that gets me, how everything always seems to be about PUNISHMENT and hurting wrongdoers and not about minimising harm, not about reducing future damage, not about actual, real justice that might put some goddamn good into this world

this is ESPECIALLY true for crimes that, while shocking and cruel, don't actually physically harm any human beings. like cutting down a special tree. our response to a bad thing should not be to add more, worse things to the world, to be honest. and i am concerned that the tone of these jokes/hyperbolic remarks normalises a mindset and an approach to justice that should not, in fact, be normalised

[soracities]

Your account is absolutely wonderful.. I am assuming that it takes a lot of time and dedication to absorb so much art... I find myself drifting away, always exhausted from my job... So I guess my question is what do you do for work and how do you stay inspired?

most of my time is spent child-minding and while that has left me with very little time to read and watch the things i want--and can be quite exhausting in and of itself--i think there is a little trade-off in that children keep you attentive to the world around you in a way you would not otherwise be, if only because you have to be that attentive to answer all their countless questions. so in a sense there is some inspiration i glean from that.

otherwise, i think this blog sometimes does give off the impression that i'm more well-read than i actually am; in reality, i dance on the surface of a lot of artworks but am passionate about maybe a tiny handful of works, and maybe, like, two painters. i have a "to watch" list that far exceeds my lifespan given that i actually watch, maybe, 3 movies a year. i have finished one (short) book since 2023 started and it took me six months to read that. the books that i've managed to read over the years, i've read chiefly in bursts and almost always in time periods where i was lucky enough in that i didn't have much to occupy me; even then, i'm aware i didn't read as much as i could have done with the time i had, but i'm also the kind of person who cannot devour book after book endlessly, either--i have a very clear saturation point, after which i need to do something different.

i think this blog, more than anything else, is a kind of repository of all the little fragments of thoughts or books or the world that interest and catch me and that i want to keep, but what i actually spend time with and dive into makes up an absolutely miniscule fraction of that. there have been long months (and years) where i did not have it in me to maintain any kind of sustained attention to reading or poetry, but i think the ability to do so is a huge, often unacknowledged, priviliege that requires not just time and economic security, but also mental clarity. i'm saying this to stress that what you feel, especially with whatever demands your job makes on you, is entirely normal and not anything to be ashamed of: the toll bills take, that laundry takes, that cooking and cleaning and countless other errands take are not to be underestimated when you go into them already sapped of most of your reserves in the first place.

it's something i've felt quite often (and still do); carving out the time to read as much or as often as i would like to does require dedication which i do not always have the energy for. but i think for me, to answer your question regarding inspiration, especially during the times when i'm not reading anything, inspiration is in paying as much attention as i can to the world around me, no matter how tiny the details are. there's a quote by william stafford where he talks about the ability to have "one vivid morning" and then "chain myself to it for fifty years". i don't have any set "philosophy" on life, but that is one thing i have always lived by: i still remember a single razor of light i saw on the railway tracks one morning a year ago which caught me by surprise, or the time on the bus when the setting sun filled the top deck and i knew then by the colour of it that summer was coming, or when i got up close to a patch of damp moss to see all its tiny little hairs more clearly, or one afternoon five years or so ago when i bought some loose pears from a corner shop and they were the sweetest, most-melt-in-the-mouth-juiciest pears i'd ever had....i can obsess over the light through a window over and over and over again no matter how often i see it. my mother put some lilies in a vase in the living room a few weeks ago and the entire time i was enraptured with how the scent hit me everytime i'd come into that room. even after more than a week they still enraptured me; each time was like i discovered them all over again and that brightened my mood so immeasurably.

for me inspiration is chiefly about recognizing the things that bring me joy and then holding them as closely as i can. there's a game i've started playing if i'm on a long bus trip where i take the number of a random bus stop i pass and if it's lower than 2020 i google what events happened in that year and pick the one that interests me most: if i'm going to be on my phone anyway, i will be on it in a way that aligns with what i already enjoy (FACTS!) and won't drain me (social media). when i don't have the energy to finish or even pick up a book, i'm subscribed to sites like Aeon, Ordinary Plots, Diaries of Note, or grieftolight on instagram (shoutout to forever beloved @firstfullmoon doing the lord's work with that account, truly), or podcasts i like, which allow me to read or experience little bits and pieces here and there without the pressure or anxiety-inducing commitment. if there is a poem i love i try to spend as much time with it as i can, which often just takes the form of me writing it down (by hand, usually-- that part is important) into a ledger of poems i keep which i can return to whenever i want, underlining my favourite parts or just rereading what spoke to me (i also love going to exhibits or museums (which, luckily, are mostly free where i live) or taking note of all the random bits of street art i see)

a year or so ago i also started, and this has changed my life, to copy down some of my favourite quotes i've reblogged onto little cue cards and stick them on the wall by my bed. some are poems, some are bits of novels or scraps of philosophy, some are motivational tidbits, but all of them are things i want to be reminded of. it helps me remember the lines i most want to keep and also grounds me in an odd way, but more than that, it just makes me happy. if i'm doom-scrolling, or having a rough evening, i can turn to that wall and read the things that mean most to me.

i don't know if any of this helps, and i'm conscious of not putting these out there as a cure-all because i'm very aware of how quickly, and how easily, this society and its set-up can drain you. i am, though, a staunch proponent of approaching art (any kind) and your engagement with it from a place and a pace that is true to you, before anything else, and that includes taking into account your own circumstances and what would bring you the most enjoyment within the means you have available to you: sometimes that's a 20 minute radio interview about blackholes, sometimes it's counting how many birds you pass as you walk through the park, sometimes it's 150 page novella it takes you half a year to finish. whatever it may look like, center your own pleasure first. i hope this can give you something, anon ♡

[mahamatra-cyno]

Is gay marriage legal in Sumeru? Would you face any issues with the Academiya for dating or marrying a man?

Sumeru is a nation focused almost entirely on the pursuit of knowledge and understanding. As such, it is well within our interests as a nation to reject nonsensical traditional views and policies. Especially now, with the corrupt sages removed from power, that has been realized in its entirety. Akademiya is expanding to the desert, healthcare is free, artistic expression is encouraged. Even then, all of the previously existing stereotypes and biases have stemmed from academic disparities, misconceptions, and influence from the people in power—rather than mass discrimination for sexuality or gender, like some other nations might face. This is not to say that some people don’t experience those biases on an individual level—they just aren’t systemic. The discrimination against desert dwellers, on the other hand, are an entirely different issue, and will likely take years to deconstruct.

In terms of gay marriage, I cannot recall such a preventative law existing in the time that I’ve been General Mahamatra, but if it had, I have no doubt that either Lesser Lord Kusanali or Alhaitham himself would have eradicated it from our legislature by now. You are free to marry who you want in Sumeru.

[necro-love]

[retro-stars]

ON TODAY'S EPISODE OF: I Have Too Much Free Time, Free-Will, And A Pair Of Hands

(Og/Pre-edit versions below the cut)