Schools, colleges, universities — they are communities full of smaller communities. They are designed to bring people together and yet, there are also forces of isolation at work there. As teachers we often find ourselves separated by the walls of our classrooms or offices and the figurative barriers erected by our busy schedules and individual interests. Continue reading ‘Collaborating in Virtual Space’
Archive for April, 2003
Yesterday I asked: how can we make online learning worth the risk? I’ll start with what for many students is the biggest risk of all: making your work for the class public. It’s a big risk. American university culture is intensely private - and grades are the most private information of all. Students are used to taking tests that only the teacher sees, writing papers that only the teacher sees, all for a grade that is a secret shared between the teacher and student. Continue reading ‘Making Success A Public Affair’
My wife, an attorney, always reminds me that you want to “sue” big companies because they have money, and you want to press criminal charges against individuals because they will feel the real pain.
To do otherwise would seem futile. The only way to make a corporation hurt is to take away its money. Individuals, on the other hand, value their freedom above all else. Continue reading ‘When Education Gets Personal — Getting Rid of Illegal File Sharing’
Dan Gilmore is writing a book. Listen to how he describes it in this article — “I’m working on a book, and invite you to be part of it. . . . I’m doing the typical research: reading, interviewing, thinking, organizing, etc. I think I know a lot already about this subject. Naturally, I also am aware that I could know a lot more. So let’s practice what I preach. To that end, I hope you will become a part of this book, too. You can start by reading the outline below. My publisher, O’Reilly & Associates, agreed that this was a good idea.” Continue reading ‘Collaborative Teaching is Something We Can Do Now!’
So, back to the problem of jibber-jabber. What is it that students are complaining about with the jibber-jabber? It is not the jibber-jabber itself, clearly: just take a look at ICQ and chat messaging abbreviations - talk about jibber-jabber! The problem is instead the students’ failure to understand the computer jargon or computer procedures, and the deep-seated fear of failure that haunts the school environment. Continue reading ‘Fear of Failure in the World of Online Learning’
Something quite wonderful happened in my Online Folklore-Mythology class today: our class is making its own web of stories! Each week the students add a new story to their Storybook Project, and here is what I found when I opened the “Constellation Mythology” project that one student is writing:
“There is no mythology linked with the constellation Monoceros [Uni-corn], so I thought this would be the perfect opportunity to give my own explanation. It also just so happens that I read ____’s storybook project last week, and it is all about unicorns! I loved her story of the Last Unicorn, and thought that would be a perfect place to start.”
That is the web of the class! Students sharing stories, retelling the stories in their own words, connecting stories to their own interests, making the stories meaningful all over again, connecting with other students in the class. Continue reading ‘The Web of the Class and a Digital Fairy Tale’
The Yankee Group’s annual Technologically Advanced Family survey reveals that in 2002, 66% of the homes in the U.S. had a PC, and that while only 8% of those homes have some kind of home networking now, 50% are planning to buy networking equipment within the next year. This is right in line with Wired’s current special issue on wireless technology.
The number biggest attraction for the average user? The simplicity of the technology along with the fact that they finally get rid of all the wires. Continue reading ‘How Wireless Might Make Sense in Education’
Almost a year ago we heard the announcement that a group of developers with the enviable name Butterfly.net, had stitched together software that would allow distributed computers to be linked together as a virtual supercomputer for gaming — i.e. they built a grid for gaming.
Since that time, Butterfly.net has partnered with IBM to provide a complete platform for grid-based gaming, and in February, these two teamed with Sony to announce the Butterfly Grid for PlayStation 2. Continue reading ‘Grid Computing and Gaming — Experience as Educaton’
There is no doubt that as the IM wars begin to heat up again the key component of the competition is the integration of voice and video to those services.
And integral to that integration and extension is SIP (Session Initiation Protocol) — a real-time communications protocol for providing IP-based voice, video, and IM. Continue reading ‘Take a SIP of This — Voice and Data Coming to a Network Near you (Soon)’
Yes boredom is alive and well in classrooms all over the world. Traditional chalk and talk methodology is even more boring for today’s students than any earlier group. Things haven’t changed much in the classroom since lecture halls first came into being. While the sharing of knowledge will always involve a certain amount of lecture, students today crave dynamic learning experiences which immerse them in subject matter. We take children that have grown up surrounded with dynamic audio visual content and multiple technological means of distributing information and drop them into the same learning environments their great grandparents experienced. Is it any wonder many students struggle in the classroom? Continue reading ‘Predicting the End of Chalk and Talk’
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