Michael Amlung, U. of Georgia
More info, resources - homebase Web page for FrLv 10/7
Also see: TED in 3 Minutes | Video channel on TED.com
Also see: TED in 3 Minutes | Video channel on TED.com
Tuesday, October 04, 2011
Virtual Conf in Class via 3 Min. TED Videos: incl.scientific breakthroughs, cultural shifts, poetry, quick advice
"Train at home for a better career..without setting foot inside a classroom:..Gun repair, Animal Care, Gourmet Cooking”
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| 3rd Col 6th Row |
In 1991(?), even before the Internet, you could learn Gun Repair at home! And more!
This famous TV commercial offered these options [REALLY!]:
- High School
- TV/VCR repair
"earned his degree in TV/VCR Repair from Sally Struthers Univ..with a Masters..in Mustache Analysis from Cambridge"
I was trying to learn more about "Sally Struthers University" [don't ask!] and found this along the way:
"Grubb, known to close friends and family by his second middle name of 'Herbert', earned his degree in TV/VCR Repair from Sally Struthers University, along with a Masters degree in Mustache Analysis from Cambridge. In his spare time he enjoys wearing diagonally-striped shirts, Alaskan spear fishing, and watching Cartoon Network." - Administration & Faculty | American Mustache Institute: "American Mustache Institute: Protecting the rights of, and fighting discrimination against mustached Americans, by promoting the growth, care, and culture of the mustache."
Monday, October 03, 2011
Text-to-Speech for tablets, phones: A.Essential B.Illegal C.Key to better learning D.Death knell (silent?)for audiobooks, textbooks
Will Amazon's new devices support easy use for those with limited sight or preferences for audio learning? What about new smart phones, tablets, netbooks, laptops, ...?
Connundrum - Text-to-Speech is:
A. Essential for the blind
B. Illegal, immoral exploitation of authors
C. Key to better learning for students with learning disabilities
D. Death knell (silent?) for audiobook & textbook publishers
E. Gateway to school adoption of eTextbooks
This conflict just heated up with Amazon's intro of the Fire and other Kindle variations. Expectations for emerging textbook options are soaring again as computing-related gadgets continue to increase in capabilities and decrease in weight and price. See TLT-SWG: Moore's Law BOTH Prescient AND Prescriptive
Jun 13, 2011
More... quotations, excerpts
More... quotations, excerpts
"If everything seems under control, you're just not going fast enough." [Mario Andretti] vs. Need for thoughtful planning?
For more on "What's the difference between careful planning and undue restraint of innovation?" See "Counterimplementation Tactics" TLT-SWG Blog 2011 Sept
IMAGE
Photo of "Mario Andretti im Lotus 63 mit Allradantrieb," by Lothar Spurzem, 01.08.1969; modified by/on: User:Rainer Zenz 23:20, 16 June 2006 (UTC) from German Wikipedia, Original file: de:Bild:AndrettiMario19690801Lotus63-Allrad.jpg
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f4/AndrettiMario19690801Lotus63-Allrad-3.jpg/798px-AndrettiMario19690801Lotus63-Allrad-3.jpg
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:AndrettiMario19690801Lotus63-Allrad-3.jpg
This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Germany license.
Saturday, October 01, 2011
"Sometimes you can reconcile yourself to lower standards of living than your parents had
— otherwise, no one would major in the liberal arts." Petri, 20111001 http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/compost/post/america-has-gotten-soft-obama-says-not-for-millennials/2011/09/30/gIQAmmHbAL_blog.html
Friday, September 30, 2011
Indiana U. negotiated low student prices for E-Textbooks required in some courses
"Slightly more than half of the students surveyed—about 55 percent—said they read less of the e-textbook than they would have read from a printed copy, while 22 percent said they read more from the e-textbook than they would have from a printed copy."
"... the university requires certain students to purchase e-textbooks and negotiates unusually low prices by promising publishers large numbers of sales—now has the participation of major textbook publishers, and university officials plan to expand the effort."
- Excerpts above/below from "Major Publishers Join Indiana U. Project That Requires Students to Buy E-Textbooks," By Jeffrey R. Young, September 15, 2011, 7:00 am, Wired Campus - The Chronicle of Higher Education
"..if you put the Internet on the device I am supposed to be using to read, I will never read again."
"..books are wastes of screens. You give me a dual-processor, web-reading, multitasking wonder-screen for just $199 —it would be almost insulting to use it for books. That’s like hiring a porn star to read you the Encyclopedia Britannica. It’s a waste of resources."
"If all these studies about multitasking have taught us anything, it is that we all think we can multitask but no one actually can. In the course of writing this I have eight times run off and reloaded the page to see if anything had happened on YouTube that I should know about.
"This is not theoretical.
"It’s times like this that I think how delighted I would be if the Internet stopped.
“Finally, no Twitter to keep me from reading ‘Madame Bovary’!” I would exclaim.
- Excerpts from "Dear Amazon: About that new Kindle Fire tablet," Posted at 03:59 PM ET, 09/28/2011 By Alexandra Petri, "ComPost," Washington Post Opinion, http://wapo.st/p4ZuF8
IMAGE
Photo of painting "This portrays the story of a dispution between Saint Dominic and the Cathars in which the books of both were thrown on a fire," Pedro Berruguete 15th century.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/7d/Santo_Domingo_y_los_albigenses-detalle.jpg/500px-Santo_Domingo_y_los_albigenses-detalle.jpg
//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7d/Santo_Domingo_y_los_albigenses-detalle.jpg
Permission
Pedro Berruguete [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
"This is a faithful photographic reproduction of an original two-dimensional work of art. The work of art itself is in the public domain for the following reason: This image (or other media file) is in the public domain because its copyright has expired."
Thursday, September 29, 2011
eTextbooks via iPad? Amazon Fire? iPhone 5? Time to think about textbook transitions!
 |
| Students want lighter backpacks! |
More info, resources - homebase Web page for FrLv 9/30
Publishers offering/exploring eTextbooks: "John Wiley & Sons; Bedford, Freeman & Worth Publishing Group; W.W. Norton; and Flat World Knowledge... "
Successful online stat course textbook transition! $180/stdnt PRINT to <$90/stdnt DIGITAL
Charles Ansorge - Teacher of Statistics Online, et al.
Testimonials re: Ansorge’s Online Courses
Keeping Up - New Tools for Teaching Online Students - Charles Ansorge, YouTube video produced 20110924, includes description, screen shots of successful transition from $180 print to <$100 per student digital statistics textbook - including supplemental online resources (e.g., weekly assignments automatically checked and tracked THAT STUDENTS REPORT THEY APPRECIATE!).
What is a Correspondence Course?
"..exchange of teaching materials between a student and teacher geographically remote from each other.
The student obtains a textbook locally, and lesson plans, lecture notes and problem sets are sent by the instructor to the student. The student sends completed assignments back to the instructor for grading, and exams are administered by a proctor local to the student." - From "What is a Correspondence Course?" on Wisegeek website 2011092
"In the United States William Rainey Harper, first president of the University of Chicago developed the concept of extended education, whereby the research university had satellite colleges of education in the wider community, and in 1892 he also encouraged the concept of correspondence school courses to further promote education, an idea that was put into practice by Columbia University.[7] - From Wikipedia 20110928
IMAGE
Cropped from photo of "Arabian Gulf (Mar. 18, 2003) -- Postal Clerk ...sorts through 16,000 pounds of mail piled in the ship's hangar bay"
U.S. Navy photo by Photographer's Mate 2nd Class Alicia Tasz. (RELEASED), 18 March 2003
"This Image was released by the United States Navy with the ID 030318-N-4048T-007.
This file is a work of a sailor or employee of the U.S. Navy, taken or made during the course of the person's official duties. As a work of the U.S. federal government, the image is in the public domain."
73% college students willing to give up sex to get etextbooks! Really?
"Seventy-three percent of college students who responded to a new Kelton Research study sponsored by education software startup Kno said they’d be willing to do something they might not normally do — including giving up dating or sex — if they could never carry another textbook.
"...Sixty-two percent of respondents said they would study more often if they could access their textbooks from anywhere without having to carry them around
Most college online educ still like old correspondence schools digitized?
Text-based, asynchronous, scheduled assignments, proctored exams? Sound familiar? In spite of growing availability of tools, services that support synchronous interaction via text, voice, video?
In spite of growing availability of tools, services that support access to teaching/learning resources in growing variety of media?
How well do entirely online text-based asynchronous college-level courses reflect commitment to the role of liberal arts in higher education?
More ... OCICU as puzzling example
Counterimplementation Tactics: Samples show how thoughtful caution differs from undue restraint of innovation. More examples?
- Oh, I don't know if we should go ahead with this until we have every last little thing nailed down.
- We haven't really done anything like this before so we need to be really careful.
- Besides I have so much to do that I can't really help, but you two go ahead.
- I'm not sure it will make us any money so is there something else we should be doing instead?
- Oh, what will people think about this session? I'm sure there will be negative reaction so we really shouldn't move ahead
Reprise of excerpt from TLT-SWG blog posting 20110926 "We
can only hope for incremental change..except.....:
Wednesday, September 28, 2011
Residential Campus vs. Commuter College vs. Online Educ? NO ONE WAY!
- Excerpts above and below are from a series of articles about "ways that parents who send their children to college could cut their expenses." These excerpts are among Singletary's thoughtful responses to reader criticisms of her "One tip — that students live at home and commute to classes."
More excerpts:
Tuesday, September 27, 2011
Keeping Up: eTextbooks FridayLive! 9/30 2pm ET Free Online tlt.gs/frlv; Charles Ansorge et al.
eTextbook includes useful supplemental materials that students appreciate.
More info to follow soon!
UNISA "pioneer of higher distance educ. in the western world"
"Founded in 1873 as the University of the Cape of Good Hope, the University of South Africa (or UNISA as it is commonly known, spoken as you-nee-suh) spent most of its early history as an examining agency for Oxford and Cambridge universities and as an incubator from which most other universities in South Africa are descended. In 1946 it was given a new role as a distance education university and today it offerscertificate, diploma and degree courses up to doctoral level." - from Wikipedia "Univ. of South Africa"
"In the 1940's, as its colleges became fully-fledged universities, UNISA entered another phase. It was clear that students trying to study on their own for examinations needed tuition, so UNISA began teaching them by correspondence.
Monday, September 26, 2011
"We can only hope for incremental change..except..in situations of mild crises,”-P.Keen,1980,re Counterimplementation
"...Obviously there is a fine line between honest resistance to a project one feels is misguided and selfish sabotage of a necessary innovation. The difference is a matter for conscience and self-scrutiny. In both cases, the response is political, whether "clean" or "dirty" politics.
"...Whether we like it or not, we can only hope for incremental change [except, as Ansoff points out [2] in situations of mild crises, where the status quo is no longer satisfactory, and organizations rethink their goals and are more willing to think "rationally"].
"The bringers and sellers of change--academics, computer specialists, and consultants-- assume that what they offer is good. In practice, there are many valid reasons to go beyond passive resistance and actively try to prevent implementation. Many innovations are dumb ideas. Others threaten the interests of individuals and groups..."
- Excerpts above & below from article “Information Systems and Organizational Change,” Peter G. W. Keen, May 1980, Communications of the ACM, January 1981, Vol 24, No. 1, pp. 24-33 pp. 27-28, 30-31.
I first encountered "Counterimplementation Strategies" in one of the most memorable and useful lectures I've ever heard - by guest speaker Peter G. W. Keen at the Wharton School, Univ. of Pa. ca. 1980.
More excerpts, including suggested tactics, strategies...
"Protect My Tweets" - Useful in Courses? Examples?
See below for excerpts about HOW to make your Tweets "private".
Useful to teachers, students? In ways not more easily done via FaceBook or Google+?Examples? e.g., anyone using "remind101" ... "what if a program could send reminders to students before their assignments are due?... allows teachers to text message or email students and parents."
Unfortunately, some "unlock" tools are available that claim to permit anyone to view any protected Tweets if it is possible to find the Twitter username for those tweets.
[Thanks to Carol Bradley for explaining this feature during one of our FridayLive! free online sessions. I didn't know about this and was skeptical. Now I'm interested. - Steve Gilbert 20110924]
Friday, September 23, 2011
BYOD "outsource your I.T. department to Apple" Pendulum of Tech Support Centralization/Decentralization Still Swinging!
"...48 percent of information workers buy smartphones for work without considering what their I.T. department supports.
"Throughout the information age, the corporate I.T. department has stood at the chokepoint of office technology with a firm hand on what equipment and software employees use in the workplace."
- See below for more excerpts from "More Offices Let Workers Choose Their Own Devices" By VERNE G. KOPYTOFF, New York Times, September 23, 2011, on page B1 of the New York edition
- See also: "Whatever you're doing now is wrong” - Gilbert's Corollary to Moore's Law [About centralizing/decentralizing tech support.]
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