Online Learning

18. November 2008 · Write a comment · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: ,

I was waiting for some comments to come in before I wrote about this article on online courses from IHE. Sure enough, the curmudgeons were first to the punch, noting that online courses vary in quality and gosh, what about cheating. Thankfully, reasonable people pointed out that F2F courses vary in quality and gosh, students cheat in those too.

The main thrust of the article is actually about how to motivate and compensate faculty for teaching and developing online courses. Course releases and monetary compensation are among the incentives already tried and have somewhat succeed. Someone in the comments suggested allowing the development of these courses to count for tenure. I think that’s a step in the right direction. The subtext of the whole discussion seems to be about whether these courses are “real” courses and whether the people who teach them are “real” faculty. Although I’ve never taught a class solely online, I know from experience that developing good online components for a courses takes a lot of time and thought. I’ve seen some places move to a model that has instructional designers take content given to them by faculty, create a course (usually in a course management system), and then the faculty member steps back in to teach it. It’s an efficient model, cheaper than paying a faculty member to develop the course, and it is probably effective some of the time. Likely, it depends on how well the course is run by the faculty member.

It is still my contention that faculty should be more involved than that in the development of online materials. Yes, an instructional designer/technologist can be hugely helpful in guiding faculty through the process and perhaps even developing some of the resources and tools that may be used in the course. But I think the faculty member can’t facilitate the course very well if he/she doesn’t participate in developing it. I can’t imagine stepping in to teach a course I didn’t have some knowledge of.*

Many of the colleges mentioned in the article are trying to get current faculty to teach courses online. In some cases, I suspect that might be like teaching old dogs new tricks. I’m sure there are interested and motivated faculty who want to teach courses online, but once you’ve tapped those out, why not consider hiring full-time faculty who teach only or mostly online and who are compensated appropriately. Teaching online *is* different from teaching face to face. Yes, much of what one knows about learning and teaching translates, but motivating students, creating good assignments, monitoring participation, etc., are all pretty different online. Why not let people specialize in that? It’s already happening at all online schools, some of which don’t pay their faculty well or treat them fairly. Landline schools could stand out by having quality faculty teaching their online courses.

Edward Winslow is right, the change is coming and all the grumping in the world isn’t going to stop it. With the economic downturn, are students really going to be willing to shell out for tuition and room and board when they could live at home, commute for a few classes and take the rest online? And what about all those people who’ve been laid off and need to retrain? Can they travel 500 miles away to go back to school? I don’t think so. Online education is a great option for lots of people. Traditional schools can either take advantage of the situation or risk missing out and possibly going under.

* I know some places that have standardized syllabi and textbooks even for F2F courses. I don’t mind so much using the same textbook and standardizing some elements of a course. But a standard course outline would drive me batty.

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Lost in MySpace

17. November 2008 · Write a comment · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: ,

Last night, the kids and I watched our usual roundup of Sunday night tv: King of the Hill, Simpsons, Family Guy. We started with this clever episode of King of the Hill on MySpace. I thought it captured the pros and cons of social networking quite well. A couple of my favorite moments:

Donna: You just don’t get my generation!
Hank: Donna, you’re my age.

Hank (typing in his blog): Donna is an idiot. Post.
Donna: I’m sure my 4000 friends will find that very interesting.
Hank: Is that supposed to scare me. Are your 4000 friends gonna come through the screen and get me.
Other worker: The people are not really in the computer, Hank.

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Weekend update

15. November 2008 · 1 comment · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: ,

I kept meaning to blog yesterday, but it was an actual busy day. I went to see another ear doctor in the morning to find a solution to my vertigo. It’s so awesome when you have a doctor listen to you and tell you what she’s thinking in terms of a diagnosis and treat you like an actual grownup with a brain. I have to go for some tests at another office, but these should give us a good idea of what’s going on.

I had lunch with my students that work for me in the lab I ran. They are so awesome! Most of them will be taking a class with me in the spring, so it’s not goodbye. It was fun to hear what they had to say about technology (most of them don’t remember not having a computer in the house) and working and having a family. I’m looking forward to next semester.

I had a meeting in SL with Barbara Ganley and Martha Burtis. It’s nice hanging out in virtual worlds with people.

I spent some time cleaning. Next week the serious cleaning ends. The plan is to work in the mornings and do just a little cleaning in the afternoon before the kids get home, and then do a little more work while they’re doing homework. The kids have cleaning projects this weekend to help me finish up some things I’ve been working on. Geeky Girl actually organized a kitchen drawer spontaneous after she saw what I’d done to a cabinet. Geeky Boy wants to work on his room now after seeing Geeky Girl’s room starting to shape up.

The hard part for us is how to get rid of stuff. We have lots of toys and books (used but in good shape) that I need to find a home for. So that’s a project for the weekend too.

Mr. Geeky leaves for an international trip this afternoon. We’re helping him get ready for that and we think we’re also going to try to go to a movie after we see him off.

Two nights this week, we played Boggle and then we all remembered Word Racer, and we have enough computers that all of us can play at the same time. I kill at Boggle, but Geeky Boy kills at Word Racer. He claims he can see patterns better. He’s also a wicked-fast typist. I actually took typing classes in high school and at my best, I can type 80 words/minute. He’s gotta be faster than that. We’ve done a lot of things this week that have been interesting and fun, but that the kids have to be learning from. Geeky Boy is playing the fantasy stock market after we spent some time looking at the market trends in the NY Times. He’s made $7 so far on a biofuel company. Geeky Girl was home sick and we watched Kit Kittridge and talked about the Great Depression. It’s nice to not just have the time (I could have always made the time), but the energy and brain space to have those conversations.

Please consider donating to my efforts in the Susan G. Komen 3-Day Walk for the Cure

What Michelle Obama represents

13. November 2008 · Write a comment · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: ,

I finally got around to reading this Salon article on Michelle Obama’s slide from professional working woman to traditional First Lady/Mom. I’ve seen this happen to so many women in my life, including myself to a large extent, that it’s a familiar story. And I can’t decide if it’s a sad story or not. I think it’s yet to be seen. I’m looking forward to the possibility of Michelle focusing some attention on the dilemma many women face of trying to balance work and family, especially for those who decide to take some time away from the fast track to tend to children. Perhaps we’ll see some policy changes that help people balance their work and family lives.

The money quote for me in this article:

Barack continues, “No matter how liberated I liked to see myself as — no matter how much I told myself that Michelle and I were equal partners, and that her dreams and ambitions were as important as my own — the fact was that when children showed up, it was Michelle and not I who was expected to make the necessary adjustments. Sure, I helped, but it was always on my terms, on my schedule. Meanwhile, she was the one who had to put her career on hold.” Barack considers his dawning realization that in his wife, as in so many working women, there was a battle raging. “In her own mind, two visions of herself were at war with each other,” he writes. “The desire to be the woman her mother had been, solid, dependable, making a home and always there for her kids, and the desire to excel in her profession, to make her mark on the world and realize all those plans she’d had on the very first day that we met.”

Like many men his age, Obama is “liberated” in the sense that he recognizes that women have the right to have the same ambitions as men, but doing to the work to make that happen locally is hard. I also think that women have that same battle Michelle had (has?). I think women recognize more than men do (sometimes) the value of good childrearing and even if they can afford it, have a hard time handing that over to others.

In just the week that I’ve been away from work, I’ve already seen positive results from my being around. Geeky Boy told me this morning on his way to school how glad he was to have all his homework done, that it felt really good. After all the homework battles I didn’t have the energy for after work, dinner, cleaning, this was music to my ears. And proof at least to me that parently presence is important, at least for my family.

Please consider donating to my efforts in the Susan G. Komen 3-Day Walk for the Cure

Snake Martini

12. November 2008 · Write a comment · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: ,

A goofy thing I made–pretty fun little tool:

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Skeptical of Digital Humanities

12. November 2008 · Write a comment · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: , ,

Okay, I’m just going to throw this out there. I’m ambivalent about digital humanities. I know what you’re thinking–that as a technologist and a humanist, I’m the last person on earth who should be skeptical about such things. But the more I read in blogs and elsewhere, the more kind of creeped out I get. I have a real sense that many of these practitioners have a historical and technical blind spots when it comes to their use of technology to explore humanist subjects or vice versa, to use the humanities to explore technological developments. I feel as if they are layering on their own field on top of technology rather than looking at technology for what it is. Very few of these people could code their own work (though some can, I realize) or even if they can’t, understand fully the relationship between code and text, images, and video. Instead, they tend to come up with a philosophical rather than a technical relationship between those things. And maybe it’s not even understanding that’s necessary, but respect. Respect for the complexity of the interrelationship of code with itself (how functions and variables and such work together and are intertwined), and with other elements. Maybe what I’m feeling is a sense that digital humanists see technology not as a thing in itself, but as means to an end and it is the end that is to be explored thoroughly and not the means.

I feel like I’m headed into Marxist territory here, looking at the means of production. Yikes. It’s not that I think the end isn’t worth exploring, but that one does need to consider how these technological products are produced. While many digital humanities organizations encourage the use of open source software, for example, I’m not seeing too many actually contribute to the production of that software or partnering with their computer science colleagues to do so. (I’d be happy to be proven wrong about that.) Most images and video, for example, are contained in proprietary formats as are some database formats. I recognize that many humanists use what is readily availabe and easiest to use and that often means using what your institution provides to you. Most institutions have invested in Microsoft, Adobe and the like and have not invested in Open Office, GIMP, WordPress, etc. Although I’m a fan of Google and it’s many delicious web apps, it, too, is proprietary. We need to think about these things both from a preservation standpoint and from a standpoint of free information.

I haven’t fully thought all of this out. And I would like to do some more thinking about it. I would welcome comments, questions, arguments, etc.

Please consider donating to my efforts in the Susan G. Komen 3-Day Walk for the Cure

Not really working yet

11. November 2008 · Write a comment · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: ,

So, I’m not really doing anything one might categorize as “work” yet. Which is okay since I hadn’t planned on doing anything in that category until say, December-ish. I am reading. I hope to start doing some writing next week. Mostly I’m trying to get my health back and my house into maintenance mode (rather than “can’t even find a pair of underwear in the morning mode”; not a good mode, trust me).

Yesterday, I went for a walk and raked leaves. It felt good to be outside. It also felt good to accomplish something that had visible results. Being a complete weather wimp and it being a chilly 38 degrees today, I’ll not be venturing outdoors today, but I do hope to squeeze in some yoga on the wii fit. There’s also grocery shopping and laundry to be done and a little work on the kids’ rooms (a harrowing experience, let me tell you). In between all of that will be some reading (I have about 4 books going). Last night, instead of having our heads in our computers or glued to the tv, we played a game of Boggle (which I won). Much as I love technology, sometimes it’s good to step away from the keyboard. I’m trying to find the right balance. It’s awfully easy to do nothing but hang out online when there are no meetings to go to.

Please consider donating to my efforts in the Susan G. Komen 3-Day Walk for the Cure

Headaches gone for now

10. November 2008 · Write a comment · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: ,

Not that I want to turn this into a health blog, but just FYI, the headaches have gone for now. I did spend the entire afternoon watching “Mystery Diagnosis” and there were several episodes dealing with headaches. The causes ran the gamut from tumors to hormonal imbalance. Yuck. I’m hoping to get a walk in today, get some fresh air, stay away from the computer again.

Please consider donating to my efforts in the Susan G. Komen 3-Day Walk for the Cure

Mystery Diagnosis

09. November 2008 · Write a comment · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: ,

. . . is probably not the best show to watch when suffering from mysterious symptoms.

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Eventful night

08. November 2008 · Write a comment · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags:

Our little neighborhood is usually all in bed by 10 p.m. Very few things happen. We’ve had a small house fire, a suspected Lexus ring, and a couple of high-school parties, but nothing more exciting than that. Last night, we were awakened at 3:00 a.m. to a horn honking, constant, like someone had fallen on the wheel. That was followed by a lot of yelling. Our houses are close enough together that Mr. Geeky, who’d gone downstairs to see what was going on, could hear the whole thing. The shouting match ended with someone getting punched and glass breaking. By then, Mr. Geeky was already calling the police.

The woman who was doing the honking and the shouting and the punching had already left by the time the police arrived. But she came back, less loudly this time. By then, we couldn’t sleep. So it was 9:30 before we roused ourselves.

It’s a bit disturbing to have your social norms violated. In our neighborhood, domestic issues are kept inside. To have them on display like that feels odd. Worse, we are actually worried about the safety of our neighbors, not for ourselves, but of course, we don’t want to butt in. Sigh. I just hope it all gets resolved.

Please consider donating to my efforts in the Susan G. Komen 3-Day Walk for the Cure
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