Multilitteratus Incognitus

While I was exploring the options for conversation simulation software (I am not that skilled with Flash so that would take WAY too long to accomplish), I came across KDSimStudio (via eLearning Learning ). I was really excited to try it out since it seemed straight forward and easy to use, and there was a demo version that I could try. The software looks nice, but I found out that it only supports roman character sets (maybe even just ASCII), so all my Greek looks like gibberish. Too bad because I thought that this software would have been great for language education!

I love the phrase: Collaborating like it's 1999 :-)

Earlier this month I was reading the sinkhole ahead blog post on Inside Higher Ed, which prompted me to read this little rant on the D written by the same author. You know it's funny, I've been a student for quite some time now and I've never thought of the "D" much. One semester in my undergrad I just wanted to get a D in calculus II so that I can pass and move on. Calculus II wasn't required for any subsequent courses, but I had to take it and pass it, and quite honestly I felt like I was being dragged behind a bus. In any case, what is debated is what role does D satisfy? I've always thought about the letter grade system as being things similar to my Greek Elementary school grading A = 'Αριστο = Excellent B = Πολύ Καλό = Very Good C = Καλό = Satisfactory/good D = Μέτριο = So, so (not quite fail, not quite satisfactory, needs work) F = 0 (Zero) Now, one of the blog posts mentions the following D's make some level of sense if you believe the a...

Earlier this month I was reading an article on Inside Higher Ed about about a Duke administrator that went back into teaching, how she found Grading so tiresome that she decided to outsource it...to her students! Yes indeed, students in her class also graded each others papers. This professor writes: I can't think of a more meaningless, superficial, cynical way to evaluate learning than by assigning a grade. It turns learning (which should be a deep pleasure, setting up for a lifetime of curiosity) into a crass competition: how do I snag the highest grade for the least amount of work? how do I give the prof what she wants so I can get the A that I need for med school? That's the opposite of learning and curiosity, the opposite of everything I believe as a teacher, and is, quite frankly, a waste of my time and the students' time. There has to be a better way.... I honestly fail to see what's superficial about grading. It's not a beauty contest among the students. E...

A little Friday PhD humor for you: I have to say that I've never been that inventive with my project names :-) I just go off swearing up a storm when something does not work ;-)

I was reading a post titled Language learning, critical thinking and the role of the teacher on the linguist the other day and I was really surprised. Now granted I am not a member of his list-serv, perhaps I should be to get the whole story, even though ESL isn't my immediate field of interest. Now long story short here, it appears that some people have their feathers ruffled because of the belief that critical thinking should (or should not) be included in the foreign language curriculum. Personally I think that critical thinking activities should be part of the curriculum in any language learning situation because when you are learning a language you are also learning about many other things that influence a language - such as culture, history, popular sayings, predispositions of the natives, and so on. Language is not used in a vacuum and simply learning more vocabulary doesn't mean that you will necessarily be getting more comprehensible input. Yousef writes (in the co...

...my two cents... I saw this on Techdirt about a month ago and it's been lingering in my Google Reader starred items ever since. I've made a good faith effort to read the original but my brain is a bit fried from this summer (and I would like to save a few braincells for the fall semester) Here's the abstract for the paper: The conventional rationale for copyright of written works, that copyright is needed to foster their creation, is seemingly of limited applicability to the academic domain. For in a world without copyright of academic writing, academics would still benefit from publishing in the major way that they do now, namely, from gaining scholarly esteem. Yet publishers would presumably have to impose fees on authors, because publishers would not be able to profit from reader charges. If these publication fees would be borne by academics, their incentives to publish would be reduced. But if the publication fees would usually be paid by universities or grantors, th...

Wow, classes are over! I suppose I should pop the cork off some wine or something and celebrate - then again school starts again in a couple of weeks so it will be a short lived celebration :-) This summer went by quite fast. I don't know if it was the crazy weather (mostly gray and rainy), or the fact that I had homework in the summer. Oh well. I still have at least three weeks of homework-free (and Blackboard-free!!!) time to enjoy the rest of the summer :-) Hopefully this time next year I will be done with my Instructional Design degree!

Selecting an LMS is probably not an easy thing for an organization because many different faculty probably have many different requirements for their classes. This exercise in LMS selection then becomes a balancing act between cost, ease of use, and fulfilling as many of the user requirements as possible. Last summer, when I was taking INSDSG 619 we spoke about these issues but at a surface level since that wasn't the focus of the course. I think it would be great to offer a course on LMS selection and administration so that students can get their hands dirty with a few types of LMS before graduating. This of course would require the 800lb gorilla in the room (Blackboard) to work out a deal with the university/department to allow for cheap or free experimentation :-) I came across this small checklist for those who are in the process of thinking of an LMS: click here . In lieu of a full course, it's good enough to get you started thinking about the issues :-)

I was reading this on Slashdot the other day about a person going back to school to complete their computer science degree. Here's a quick quote: I recently went back to college to finish my CS degree, however this time I moved to a new school. My previous school taught only C++, except for a few higher level electives (OpenGL). The school I am now attending teaches what seems like every language in the book. The first two semesters are Java, and then you move to Python, C, Bash, Oracle, and Assembly. While I feel that it would be nice to get a well-rounded introduction to the programming world, I also feel that I am going to come out of school not having the expertise required in a single language to land a good job. After reading the syllabi, all the higher level classes appear to teach concepts rather than work to develop advanced techniques in a specific language. Which method of teaching is going to better provide me with the experience I need, as well as the experience an em...

This past week I saw an article on the BBC and a blog post on the Brazen Careerist network that go well together - like w(h)ine and cheese. Yes, the bad pun was intended. The BBC article centers around a woman in New York who is a jobless graduate and is suing her college because she's failed to get a job after graduation. As the BBC reports: She is seeking to recover $70,000 (£42,000) she spent on tuition to get her information technology degree and The ex-student, who received her degree in April, says the college's Office of Career Advancement did not provide her with the leads and career advice it had promised. "They have not tried hard enough to help me," she wrote about the college in her lawsuit. Her mother, Carol, said her daughter was "very angry at her situation" having "put all her faith" in her college. On the Brazer Careerist we see yet another pointless article about Personal Branding...or rather the blogger's conviction that Co...

I was reading about the deadly online seminar (or death by webinar as I call it) on the cogdogbloy recently. I couldn't help but smile because it reminded me of a Death by PowerPoint presentation that I had created a couple of years ago. I have to say that I echo all of the author's gripes about these types of webinars and it is the reason I generally hate Wimba sessions when we have them. Most Wimba sessions I've been to have been, essentially, a broadcast of information with little input or feedback from the audience (other than the "raise your hand"). It's also really hard to contribute without seeing the face of the people in the room. The paralinguistic features of communication are really marginalized in Wimba.

I was reading this article on Inside Higher Ed recently for a case discussion for one of my classes centered around Dr. iCranky. It is a pretty interesting article, and what's more there are some pretty interesting comments. Boiling the Dr. Cranky's letter down, it's about faculty forced to adopt new shiny technology in the name of Millenials (aka digital natives), the new type of student filling the lecture halls and faculty better get on board. I also read this article on first monday. Here's the abstract: Educational technology advocates claim today’s students are technologically savvy content creators and consumers whose mindset differs from previous generations. The digital native-digital immigrant metaphor has been used to make a distinction between those with technology skills and those without. Metaphors such as this one are useful when having initial conversations about an emerging phenomenon, but over time, they become inaccurate and dangerous. Thus, this pa...