WiFi and college choice

• 90% of college students say Wi-Fi access is as essential to education as classrooms and computers
• 57% say they wouldn’t go to a college that doesn’t have free Wi-Fi
• 79% say that without Wi-Fi access, college would be a lot harder
• 60% agree that widely available Wi-Fi on campus is an indication that a school cares about its students

WiFi and where they use it

• 55% have connected from coffee shops and restaurants
• 47% from parks
• 24% from in their cars

WiFi in the classroom

• 55% have checked Facebook™ or MySpace™ and sent or received e-mail while using their laptop in class
• 47% have sent instant messages to a friend during class
• 44% used Wi-Fi to get a head start on an assignment before a class was finished

WiFi and linkbaiting statistics

• If forced to choose, 48% would give up beer before giving up Wi-Fi

Survey methodology: “In conjunction with the Wi-Fi Alliance, Wakefield Research surveyed 501 U.S. college students in September 2008. The sampling variation in this survey is plus or minus 4.3 percentage points.”

wp-edu, the WordPress for education mail list has launched. Join up, catch up on the archives, and set it up at your school.

Michael Stephens is now using WordPress MU to host his classes online, and that opening page is really sweet. It’s hardly the first time somebody’s used a blog to host course content, but I like where he’s going with it. We’re significantly expanding our use of WordPress at Plymouth, and using it to replace WebCT/Blackboard is definitely an option. The biggest difference may be that course content in blogs is public, by default, but content in Blackboard is shared only with the members of the course. John Martin calls this “teaching out loud.” My opinion is a little more emphatic: “don’t do it in the dark.”

I wonder if Michael plans to keep content online after the classes run, or what he’ll do with old content if he runs the same course again in a later term. I think there’s a lot of value in leaving course content online and available to course participants long after the course is completed. I’ve been thinking the best way to make that work is to make each course (or section of a course) in each term its own blog. That way each instructor gets full control over their course environment, while still making it easy to preserve that content over time. Here’s the URL scheme I have in mind:

• http://courses.plymouth.edu/term_code/discipline_code/course_number/section

or, in practice, something like this:

• http://courses.plymouth.edu/200810/en/3510/02

It may not be pretty to have all those numbers, but it’s reliable, predictable, and extendable. The URL structure beyond that would be up to the instructor, and the subdirectories leading to the course blogs can automatically index their sub-content. My biggest question is about where to put the term code. I expect I’ll just have to play with it a while.

Connect the dots: Boys vs. girls in US colleges and too many men in East Germany.

NPR : Back to School: Reading, Writing and Internet Safety

As students return to school in Virginia, there’s something new in their curriculum. Virginia is the first state to require public schools to teach Internet safety.

The CEO of NH’s first online-only, distance education high school expects about 700 students to enroll in its first semester, to start in January. So says a report at NHPR.

high school, virtual learning academy, new hampshire, education, distance education, online education

It should be no surprise that journalists are talking about citizen journalism, but what of the disintermediation of other industries?

Man-on-the-street Mark Georgiev told Marketplace:

I didn’t want a certificate, I didn’t want any kind of accreditation, I really just wanted the knowledge. And I also wanted to work at my own pace.

Georgiev, the story explains, has a masters from Yale but wanted to learn programming. That’s when he found Foundations of Software Engineering in MIT’s OpenCourseware.

Georgiev finished the course in a few months time. Now, he says, he can now write rudimentary programs. His only expense was buying books.

MIT isn’t alone, and at least one professor has started selling his lectures as podcasts (via), without support from the school.

Noting that students may want to use the audio recordings while cramming for tests, as an alternative to taking notes, or as an aid for non-native English speakers, NCSU’s Robert Schrag cited policy that “each professor owns the words that he or she speaks in the classroom and can do whatever they wish with them — put them in a textbook, on a CD, sell them as MP3s — whatever.”

NCSU didn’t quite see it the same way and asked Schrag to stop, but that doesn’t change the fact that the role of educational institutions — like the role of publishers — is changing.

How long before Schrag, or somebody with a similar spirit, tries again? Audio recordings and downloadable courseware may not replicate the classroom experience any more than online communities replicate physical communities, but who would claim education will be any less affected by technology than any other industry?

college 2.0, citizen professor, Robert Schrag, OpenCourseware, courseware, education, ivory tower, network, podcast lectures

[Update: Keith pointed out that my small disclaimer at the end isn't clear enough. This post is copied, stolen, cut and pasted in its entirety from Keith's blog, ISTP Dad. I was glad to learn of the story, and this was meant to be ironic and funny.]

An editorial in the Washington Post is explicit about a topic close to my heart: students think plagiarism is fine, and teachers (high school? college?) realize that there’s not much point in assigning papers if they expect 100% original work.

…the educational system needs to acknowledge what the paper is today: more of a work product that tests very particular skills — the ability to synthesize and properly cite the work of others — and not students’ knowledge, originality and overall ability.

The comments on this editorial are worth a read as well. Not everybody agrees with the sentiment.

(Cut and pasted verbatim from ISTP Dad.)

school, research, plagiarism, original thought, education, cut and paste, washington post

There’s no question that the video mentioned this morning is valuable resource for all of us, but our responsibility to our nation’s future demands more. The good folks at Cook Memorial Library in Tamworth NH are an example to us all with their series of instructional sessions in preparation for Talk Like A Pirate Day.

arrrr, education, holiday, instruction, pirate, responsibility, talk, talk like a pirate day, tlapd

Extra: start your instruction with this list of phrases:

• “Arrrgh-Bring me a servin’ wench to bid me me pleasures!”
• “Argh-lad, is that Lee Elliott over there – or am I as mad as a salted herring?”
• “Billions of blue blistering barnacles!” – Oh My God!
• “Hop to it, dogs: Thar be leftover catering booty in the break room for plunderin’.”
• “Sixteen men an’ a copier mess — yo, ho, ho and a bottle of toner.”
• “Avast, men! Get a spyglass full of the doubloons on *that* vessel.”
• “I’ll be keelhaulin’ the next one of ye what leaves ye filthy Tupperware in the break room sink!”
• “Arrr, matey, have your parrot call my parrot and we’ll one day partake of noontime grub together.”
• “No, Bob Dess, I will not ’shiver your timbers.’ I will, however, call my attorney.”
• “To arms, me lads! The spoils of the snack machine shall be ours, to each in a fortieth share!”
• “Me cell phone fell deep into Davy Jones’ locker Nobody flush… I’ll go get me hook.”
• “Save that last donut for me, unless ya care to feel the cold steel of my hook hand up yer arse, matey.”
• “Be that a peg leg, or arrr ye just happy to cast yer eyes upon me?”
• “Fax ahoy, mateys!”
• “Avast! A Team Builders meeting off our schedule’s port bow! Scuttle yer productivity, mateys, and prepare to be bored-ed!”
• “No increase in me pay? Arrr, boss, let me tell ye where ye can store that hook!”
• “Hold that elevator, ye whoreson bilge rat!”
• “Ye bent my ear with yer lubberly questions WITHOUT tryin a reboot first? Arrr! It’s the plank for you, ye mangy cur… and thank ye for calling Microsoft Tech Support!”
• “Arrr, load the Canon, wench, and collate me copies!”
• “Avast, ya scurvy knave! Brave be ye, for certain, but arrr ye willin’ ta die fer that parking spot?”
• “Twenty paces past the Magic Fountain of Water… bear ye left past the Chamber of Meetings… and a minute’s voyage down the Great Carpeted Hallway… the unisex bathroom’ll be on yer port side.”
• “Aye, if it’s a large treasure chest and amazin’ booty ye seek, fix yer gaze upon the receptionist.”
• “Boss, I’ll be borrowin’ a coupla doubloons from petty cash fer some Ho Ho’s and a bottle of rum.”
• “Aaaarrrrrghhh! Who among us floated the air mead?”
• “Arrr! I’ve arrr!anged for Arrr!lene in arrr!chives to send up that arrr!ticle on arrr!bitration.”
• “Avast, ye demon copy machine! Taste the wrath of my arse!”
• “Arrr, I have made note of yer demands and I have but one question for ye: Will ye be wantin’ slivers o’ potato fried in the popular French style with that?”

Today I discovered (thank you Ryan) Kareem Elnahal’s speech as valedictorian of Mainland Regional High School and I discovered new hope, new faith in our country’s future. When high school students can step up and speak truth to power, as Elnahal did so well, I become a believer in the strength of human spirit. “We study what is, never why, never what should be. …[T]his pattern, grade for the sake of a grade, work for the sake of work, can be found everywhere,” said Elnahal.

Ladies and gentlemen, the spirit of intellectual thought is lost. I speak today not to rant, complain or cause trouble, and certainly not to draw attention to myself. I have accomplished nothing and I am nothing. I know that. Rather, I was moved by the countless hours wasted in those halls. Today, you should focus on your child or loved one. This is meant to be a day of celebration, and if I’ve taken away from that, I’m sorry. But I know how highly this community values learning, and I urge you all to re-evaluate what it means to be educated.

Bravo. Of course a press report notes that “he was interrupted by school officials when he started to talk about the shortcomings of the American educational system. He finished quickly and walked off the field.”

Fiteen years ago I read an essay by John Taylor Gatto, 1991 New York state teacher of the year and three times New York City teacher of the year. I’ve no idea whether Elnahal has ever seen The Six Lesson Schoolteacher — the essay that helped me through my highschool years — but I find surprising concordance in the arguments.

Gatto’s lessons are, in short: know your place and stay there, nothing matters (except what I say), you are powerless, you are dependent on authority, your worth will be judged by “authorities,” and we are watching you constantly.

Lessons two and four ring out every time I read them:

The second lesson I teach kids is to turn on and off like a light switch. I demand that they become totally involved in my lessons, jumping up and down in their seats with anticipation, competing vigorously with each other for my favor. But when the bell rings I insist that they drop the work at once and proceed quickly to the next work station. Nothing important is ever finished in my class, nor in any other class I know of.

The lesson of bells is that no work is worth finishing, so why care too deeply about anything? Bells are the secret logic of schooltime; their argument is inexorable; bells destroy past and future, converting every interval into a sameness, as an abstract map makes every living mountain and river the same even though they are not. Bells inoculate each undertaking with indifference.

The fourth lesson I teach is that only I determine what curriculum you will study. (Rather, I enforce decisions transmitted by the people who pay me). This power lets me separate good kids from bad kids instantly. Good kids do the tasks I appoint with a minimum of conflict and a decent show of enthusiasm. Of the millions of things of value to learn, I decide what few we have time for. The choices are mine. Curiosity has no important place in my work, only conformity.

Bad kids fight against this, of course, trying openly or covertly to make decisions for themselves about what they will learn. How can we allow that and survive as schoolteachers? Fortunately there are procedures to break the will of those who resist.

This is another way I teach the lesson of dependency. Good people wait for a teacher to tell them what to do. This is the most important lesson of all, that we must wait for other people, better trained than ourselves, to make the meanings of our lives. It is no exaggeration to say that our entire economy depends upon this lesson being learned. Think of what would fall apart if kids weren’t trained in the dependency lesson: The social-service businesses could hardly survive, including the fast-growing counseling industry; commercial entertainment of all sorts, along with television, would wither if people remembered how to make their own fun; the food services, restaurants and prepared-food warehouses would shrink if people returned to making their own meals rather than depending on strangers to cook for them. Much of modern law, medicine, and engineering would go too — the clothing business as well — unless a guaranteed supply of helpless people poured out of our schools each year. We’ve built a way of life that depends on people doing what they are told because they don’t know any other way. For God’s sake, let’s not rock that boat!

But not in my schools you say? Daniel Loggi, superintendent of the Atlantic County, NJ, School District might argue with you. “I know Mainland is one of our top high schools in this county. They’ve been a Blue Ribbon school and received a lot of awards.” To emphaisize the point, Loggie added “The education [Elnahal] received there is permitting him to go on to Princeton.”

Gatto left teaching, Elnahal is moving on. Is there room for criticism or self-inspection from active insiders? I doubt it when I read the story reported here, of a school administrator tearing down a group art project and openly questioning the the art teacher regarding a project that appeared to truly engage her students. I doubt it as I remember the experience of Steve Geluso, a student who received an “F” for writing an essay questioning the current copyright dogma.

Still, we have Kareem Elnahal’s example. Perhaps free thought is not dead.

american education, critical thinking, criticism, education, John Taylor Gatto, Kareem Elnahal, public education, public schools, speech, valedictorian

I meant to post about this weeks ago, but HigherEd BlogCon has now come and gone. It had sections on teaching, libraries, CRM, and web development. (Aside: why must we call it “admissions, alumni relations, and communications & marketing” instead of the easier to swallow “CRM”?)

The “events” are over, but everything is online, and most of it is free. Ryan did a good job of covering the first few days, and what would a blog conference be without a common tag?

Special thanks to Meredith for pulling it all together. Eh, hopefully I’ll be more on the ball next year.

blog, blogging, conference, education, higher education, higheredblogcon, libraries, teaching

I’d never heard of the New Media Consortium before, but they claim a mission to “advocate and stimulate the use of new learning and creative technologies in higher education.” Anyway, their 2006 Horizon Report identifies the following trends among those shaping the role of technology in education:

• Dynamic knowledge creation and social computing tools and processes are becoming more widespread and accepted.
   
• Mobile and personal technology is increasingly being viewed as a delivery platform for services of all kinds.
   
• Consumers are increasingly expecting individualized services, tools, and experiences, and open access to media, knowledge, information, and learning.
   
• Collaboration is increasingly seen as critical across the range of educational activities, including intra- and inter-institutional activities of any size or scope.
   

The above is largely a confirmation of the incredible growth in internet use/communications dependency that that we’ve seen in the past couple years, but they do follow it up with some more detail (and if you read the PDF, a few examples):

• Social Computing. The application of computer technology to facilitate interaction and collaboration, a practice known as social computing, is happening all around us. Replacing face-to-face meetings with virtual collaboration tools, working on a daily basis with colleagues a thousand miles away, or attending a conference held entirely online is no longer unusual. An interesting aspect of social computing is the development of shared taxonomies — folksonomies — that emerge organically from like-minded groups.
   
• Personal Broadcasting. With roots in text-based media (personal websites and blogs), personal broadcasting of audio and video material is a natural outgrowth of a popular trend made possible by increasingly more capable portable tools. From podcasting to video blogging (vlogging), personal broadcasting is already impacting campuses and museum audiences significantly.
   
• The Phones in Their Pockets. A little further out on the horizon, but rapidly approaching, the delivery of educational content and services to cell phones is just around the corner. Among the keys that will unlock the true potential of this technology are improved network speeds, Flash Lite, and video: as new features that take advantage of the capabilities of these appear in phones, barriers to delivery of educational content will vanish.
   
• Educational Gaming. A recent surge in interest in educational gaming has led to increased research into gaming and engagement theory, the effect of using games in practice, and the structure of cooperation in gameplay. The serious implications of gaming are still unfolding, but we are not far away from seeing what games can really teach us.
   
• Augmented Reality and Enhanced Visualization. Currently in use in disciplines such as medicine, engineering, and archaeology, these technologies for bringing large data sets to life have the potential to literally change the way we see the world by creating three-dimensional representations of abstract data.
   
• Context-Aware Environments and Devices. Advancements in context-aware computing are giving rise to devices and rooms that respond to voice, motion, or other subtle signals. In the ultimate application of these technologies, the “computing” part simply disappears, leaving an environment transparently responsive to its human occupants.
   

nmc, New Media Consortium, 2006 horizon report, report, tech horizons, internet use, technology in education, education, new tech

From AlterNet: Teaching In America: The Impossible Dream. Tagline:

Many public school teachers today must work two jobs to survive, and can’t afford to buy homes or raise families. Why do we treat our teachers so poorly?

tags: america, education, impossible dream, jobs, low pay, poor salary, public education, public ignorance, public school, public school teachers, school teachers, teach, teachers, teachers today, teaching

I love libraries, and I love books, but there the needs of our students and limitations of our budgets have no room for misplaced romantic attachments. That’s why I’ve found myself paraphrasing something from Ibiblio’s Paul Jones (via Teleread):

That smell of an old book, that smell of old libraries? That’s the smell of the books rotting.

We must remember that libraries catalog and share information and knowledge, not books. Our students and faculty have already voted with their feet and demonstrated that our paper (and microform) collections of periodicals are useless compared to the online, fully searchable versions. How long before the same happens for books as well?

Connections: some people don’t get this, but there are a number who do (too many to list, actually). This issue is bigger than ebooks alone, but OpenReader deserves a plug here too.

Technorati Tags: book, books, budgets, education, ibiblio, information, libraries, library, paul jones, romantic attachments, rot, rotting, smell