I was just thinking about how things have changed since I was in college. When I had a late final, I would leave for home without knowing what grade I would receive. The letter with my grades would be waiting in my campus mail box when I returned after break. That was just the way it was and it was not a matter for great concern.
Things are different now. I finalize grades and everything is posted online. As a faculty member, I now have to take time during the half time of holiday football games to get on my email and explain to students why they received the grade I awarded. It is difficult to explain everything in email. I use a system that weights the lecture grade 75% and the lab grade 25%. Students see the two scores and cannot figure out how I arrived at the final number. I should save a file with my explanation so I do not have to keep entering it in multiple emails. Multiply your lecture score by 3, add your lab score, and divide the sum by 4. Have a happy holiday.
If you have heard about open source software in education and not really known what this meant, you might want to read this introduction. The article also includes many useful links.
We wrote a recent feature on software supporting “information collections.” This piece incorporates a discussion of outliners and newer tools which have yet to be tagged with a consistent label (e.g., NoteTaker). n nI have come across new additions to this self-defined tool category and this entry is basically an update. NoteTaker – the “valet for your digital life” acta – an older outline tool
Kidz Privacy, a new site sponsored by the Federal Trade Commission, deals with privacy issues outlined in the 1998 COPPA legislation. Federal Trade Commission has established new rules for website operators to make sure that kids’ privacy is protected while they’re online. Here are explanations – for kids, parents, teachers, and the business community.
Searching for a unique present for the holiday? From May 12-18, 2003, nearly 4,000 professional photographers and tens of thousands took more than a million digital photographs of American homes creating a collection called America 24/7. You can collect “coffee table” books from this collection – you can find a version for your state. Thbe online gallery is also interesting and consists of slide shows set to music.
Cindy has little interest in posting to my blog, but she does participate actively in several lists. A list she participants in recently began to discuss the topic of print vs. online resources with some members lament the increasing interest in online resources (because sites are not permanent).
Here is Cindy’s comment (my title relates to her comments about our “kids”)
I have sincerely enjoyed this conversation and decided to contribute.
Janice, the people that you talk to – at what point are they in their career? I ask this question as I bet they are mainly established professionals and not new to their careers. I have children that range from 20 -29 and spent time with them over the holidays. I watched as they used the Internet for everything from finding a quote from a certain author, to getting the lyrics to an old song, to comparing bridal gown prices and hunting for reception locations, to posting a college assignment to WebCt and contacting members of a study group, to keeping aware of job opportunities in a special field, to creating Christmas presents with digital images and the list goes on. This was a seamless process for them.
My real concern for children these days center around the digital divide. The divide that keeps some children from having the opportunities to participate in this seamless process outside of school and the divide that exists for all children that the world around us is growing exponentially with digital information and our education system is functioning in isolation as if it doesn’t exist. The children that take advantage of it at home become disinterested in school as they know better and the children who cannot take advantage of it at home are really left behind. Our kids really live in a world that is difficult for us to comprehend. How can we take advantage of the good and help our children be problem solvers in order to deal with what is not so good?
I also sometimes chuckle when we talk about inaccurate information in the Internet. At least the realization makes us question what we read – whoever said that everything written in a book was true? Yet, in most instances we did not question the validity.
