Tag Archives: internet

Why Online Schools Are Booming

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Here is a provocative paragraph from a Newsweek article on the growth of online education.

Online offerings these days can sometimes even surpass the classroom experience. Aaron Walsh, a professor at Boston College and a former videogame designer, has pioneered Immersive Education, a method of teaching through virtual worlds. Meeting in Second Life instead of a physical classroom, says Walsh, allows for some feats that gravity renders impossible, like having art-history students fly to the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel or biology majors to take a Magic Schoolbus–like trip through the human body. Using videos, podcasts, live chats, Webcams, and wikis, educators increasingly see online learning as a way to engage the videogame generation with pedagogy that feels more like entertainment than drudgery. Students in the new homeland-security master’s degree program at the University of Connecticut this fall, for example, will have coursework that resembles Grand Theft Auto: dwelling in a cybercity called San Luis Rey plagued with suicide bombers, biochemical attacks, and other disasters. At Arizona State, students in an Introduction to Parenting class raise a “virtual child.” They have to post the progress of their online charge through all the phases of childhood. “The classes are so much more interactive, and I can log on when I’m most ready to learn,” says Jaquelyn Holleran, a junior majoring in family and human development at ASU. “I like that so much better than having to rush to class or sit through a lecture that’s boring.”

Technology and the distance learning it enables opens up so many possibilities for extending the university, and that is incredibly exciting.  The new methodologies and pedagogies it allows, like those listed above, are also reason for educators to rejoice.  I certainly have no doubt that online offerings these days can surpass the classroom experience.

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It isn’t always an either or proposition, either.  The hybrid course is often the site of the most exciting and innovative teaching.  More on that another day.

SAR Academic Freedom Media Review

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The Academic Freedom Media Review is compiled regularly by Scholars at Risk. Here is the review for July 31-August 7, 2009

Police clash with Honduran students
BBC News, 8/5

Researcher Resists Coptic Pressure (in Arabic)
Ad-Dustour, 8/5

Shift in Middle East Studies?
Scott Jaschik, Inside Higher Ed, 8/4

Reforms to Women’s Education Make Slow Progress in Saudi Arabia
Andrew Mills, The Chronicle of Higher Education, 8/3

Scandals Lead to Promises of Reform in Australian International Education
Shailaja Neelakantan, The Chronicle of Higher Education, 8/3
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IRAN: Iranian-American academic detained in Tehran
Jonathan Travis, University World News, 8/2

Barriers to Religious School Graduates lifted
Brendan O’Malley, University World News, 8/2

NIGERIA: Supreme court reinstates sacked academics
Tunde Fatunde, University World News, 8/2

Professor Speaks on UN Arab Human Development Report 2009 (in Arabic)
Al-Fayhaa, 7/31

Note: For more about the United Nations Human Development Reports, see the UNDP site.

Researchers Say Facebook Can Fuel Jealousy and Increase Time on Facebook

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Amy Muise and Emily Christofides, both Ph.D. candidates, and Serge Desmarais, an associate professor of applied social psychology at the University of Guelph, in Ontario have conducted a study into Facebook the relationship between jealousy and Facebook usage, discovering that spying on their significant others often people question the partners’ honesty and fidelity, and that time spent on the Web site tended to increase as a result.

The undergraduates were asked questions like “How likely are you to become jealous after your partner has added an unknown member of the opposite sex?” and “How likely are you to monitor your partner’s activities on Facebook?” The answer to both of those questions was “very likely” for a substantial number of participants. The respondents said they spent an average of nearly 40 minutes on the Web site each day, with women spending more time than men.

More than three-quarters of the participants said they knew their partners had added as “friends” people with whom they had previously had flings. And more than 92 percent said their partners were at least somewhat likely to have “friends” they did not themselves know.

Rising jealousy can be attributed to the social-networking site, which makes speaking with not-so-close friends easier than before, the researchers say. Many people add as friends people they have met in passing, rather than adding only acquaintances they see regularly. Men in the study reported having 100 more friends, on average, than women did. Women outscored men on the jealousy scale, averaging a score of 3.29 out of 7, while men scored 2.81. Three-quarters of those who completed the survey were women.
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Jealousy created by the site also seemed to increase people’s time on the site, fueling a vicious cycle of more jealousy and more time on Facebook. “Facebook may expose an individual to potentially jealousy-provoking information about their partner,” the article says, “which creates a feedback loop whereby heightened jealousy leads to increased surveillance of a partner’s Facebook page.” Several participants admitted being “addicted” to the site—”No one can help themselves,” one wrote. “I always find myself going on there checking new pictures and screening them. I can’t help it!” wrote another.

via The Wired Campus – Researchers Say Facebook Can Fuel Jealousy and Increase Time on Facebook – The Chronicle of Higher Education.

For more, see “More Information than You Even Wanted: Does Facebook Bring Out the Green-Eyed Monster of Jealousy?” in the August edition of the journal CyberPsychology & Behavior.

Special Topics: Teaching Tools for the Global Age

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National Institute for Technology and Liberal Education

National Institute for Technology and Liberal Education

Special Topics: Teaching Tools for the Global Age
National Institute for Technology and Liberal Education

This series addresses a critical challenge for higher education: to prepare graduating students to cope in a world that is at once increasingly globalized and increasingly fragmented. To meet this challenge, colleges and universities must help students understand other languages, cultures, and societies, as well as the relationships that connect them. International education is an expensive and complex undertaking; however, technology–the harbinger and engine of modern globalization–offers a number of cost-effective tools that can be used in the classroom to facilitate teaching about the peoples of the world and the relationships between and among them. Each session listed is priced at 1 program unit.

If you have questions about this series or would like to propose a topic for presentation, please contact Michael Toler at michael.toler@nitle.org.

* Technology and Less-Commonly Taught Languages, March 19, 2009, 4:00 – 5:15 p.m. Eastern. Featuring Hiroyo Saito (Director of the Language Learning Center, Haverford College) and Rachid Aadani (Assistant Professor of Arabic, Wellesley College). Registration Deadline: Friday, March 6, 2009.
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* Faculty Development Abroad: Connecting Campus and Community via Online Writing Tools, May 14, 2009, 4:00 – 5:00 p.m. Eastern. Featuring Shila Garg (Dean of Faculty) and Joe Benfield (Instructional Technologist), both of The College of Wooster. Registration deadline: Friday, May 1, 2009.
* Video Conferencing for Global Education: Tools for Teaching and Administration, August 13, 2009, 4:00 – 5:00 p.m. Eastern. Featuring Todd Bryant (Language Technology Specialist, Dickinson College), and David Clapp (Director of the Office of International Students and Off-Campus Studies, Wabash College). Registration deadline: Friday, July 31, 2009.
* Internationalizing Curricula in the Sciences: Uses of Media and Technology, September 10, 2009, 4:00 – 5:00 p.m. Eastern. Featuring Mark Stewart (Chair of the Department of Psychology) and Stas Stavrianeas (Professor of Exercise Science), both of Willamette University. Registration deadline: Friday, August 28, 2009.
* Models for Collaborative Teaching in Cultural Studies: Working Across Campuses, October 8, 2009, 4:00 – 5:00 p.m. Eastern. Registration deadline: Friday, September 25, 2009.
* Global Knowledge through Gaming: Teaching about the Real World through Virtual Ones, November 12, 2009, 4:00 – 5:00 p.m. Eastern. Featuring Chris Boyland, Director of the Language Learning Center at Bryn Mawr College. Registration deadline: Friday, October 30, 2009.

Operation Embarrass Your Congressman is an Embarrassment

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Somebody apparently associated with the Tea Party movement (and GOP Congressional politics) has put up an anonymous guerilla site urging protesters to “embarrass their congressman” (women exempted?) over the recess with impromptu rallies and email blasts– ala Alex’s story on POLITICO today.

The site, set up today, mentions no specific issues — and doesn’t include an “About Us” tab or any information whatsoever about who set it up. It urges that protests be kept non-violent and “respectful” and gives a step-by-step tipsheet on politician tracking, like checking their daily itineraries.

via Operation Embarrass Your Congressman – Glenn Thrush – POLITICO.com.

Remember that cialis sale online on sale here is a prescription medication that is used to treat erectile dysfunction. Driver’s education teaches the correct driving techniques and rules of the road that have to be internalized forever if you want generic viagra sample to drive always. It can be used rather than other capsules based on Sildenafil Citrate, such as Kamagra, Zenegra and generic viagra discount Caverta. For individuals who do collect a correct diagnosis to the duration of childhood, they are really capable to explore that even though they’re moving to go on by way of each day everyday life with grownup Asperger’s – purely primarily because there is no cure – these are capable to proceed with lifestyle in levitra prices a very extremely way wherever they might be no lengthier impeded through the dysfunction. But if you watch the videos on the site, submitted by participants in the movement themselves and therefor not filtered through the lens of what the people who support this movement would inevitably call the “Liberal Media,” you will see that the protests are generally not respectful at all.  Questions are asked, but the Representatives are not given a chance to respond.  People are booed and shouted down.

There is nothing wrong with following our elected officials and embarrassing them at every opportunity with challenging and insistent questions and demands for answers.  But they should be embarassed by their inability to answer or the lame answers they give.  There are many things wrong with harassing our elected officials and obstructing public discourse.  It is a disservice to those who want to engage our officials in genuine dialogue, and ultimately the only people who ought to be embarrassed are the protestors.

Shouting people down at public meetings is the equivalent of Bill O’Reilley turning off the mic of guests he doesn’t agree with.  It is bullying and it is not dialogue.

Study Abroad Blogs

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Recently I was asked for information on blogs associated with abroad programs. I’m posting the information here in case it is useful to anyone else. It’s just a few links that came to mind. I know there are many others and I will post them when I remember them. Please, also, post them in the comments if you know of any.

Student blogging from abroad, in a structured manner, is common. What is less common is innovative or pedagogically sound uses of it. There is a very interesting project supported by National Geographic called Glimpse. This is a user-generated, professionally edited website in which students and others post blogs, images, travel tips, etc. In addition to the site, there is a magazine that you can pick up a newsstands here and there. It’s a handsome, glossy publication.

One of the earliest projects of this sort (2005-2006) that I am aware of was the Blogging the World project involving Middlebury, Haverford and Dickinson.

Some International Education offices use a blog for practical reasons, simply to post news, such as this from my undergraduate alma mater, VCU.

Others, like Bucknell, consolidate student postings into a central blog.
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At Cornell students maintain blogs and the links are collected on a central page.

There are some study abroad podcasts, too. Here’s the Japan Study Abroad podcast.
I haven’t listened to it because I don’t speak Japanese, so I can’t tell you what is it about.

Here are Pacific University’s Study Abroad Podcasts.

There are more study abroad podcasts in the iTunes podcast directory, if you go to iTunes and simply search on “study abroad.”

Glimpse – Your Stories From Abroad

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This is an interesting site, supported largely by National Geographic.  It’s composed of user-generated content, but it is professionally edited which, to be honest, I find to be a nice balance.

Glimpse is a community of globally Try to reduce your consumption of coffee and alcohol if you have circulatory problems and eat foods rich in vitamin C and viagra uk E. Experts said, women must pay attention to irregular menstruations, or tube blockage may occur and cause infertility in men, for urine infection influences the appearance and transportation of sperms, make them have low activity and high rate for abnormality, it can even cause the atrophy wouroud.com wholesale prices viagra of testicle, and lead to oligospermia or obstruction of spermaduct. This will augment the male libido and mitigate some of cialis cheapest the better-known cults. Erectile dysfunction is a disorder which cheap levitra online is faced by men where he is not able to satisfy their partner sexually. minded young people who like sharing stories about life abroad. All of our content comes from people who are living or have recently lived overseas.

via share your story – Glimpse – Your Stories From Abroad.

Video Conferencing for Global Education

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National Institute for Technology and Liberal Education

National Institute for Technology and Liberal Education

The next instance in NITLE’s professional development series, Teaching Tools for the Global Age is next Thursday.  I am responsible for this series and I have really enjoyed it.  The potential of technology to help our students better understand the wider world and their place in it is enormous and we, as educators, are just beginning to take of advantage of it.

Video Conferencing for Global Education: Tools for Teaching and Administration

Date: August 13, 2009, 4:00 PM – 5:15 PM. EDT.

Location: Delivered online in NITLE MIV Auditorium

For faculty and staff from participating institutions responsible for the teaching and supporting instruction in foreign languages, the social sciences, and/or cultural studies and those charged with the administration of study abroad, international studies, student exchange and visiting scholars programs.

This session considers the uses of real-time audio and video communication tools in higher education, for both pedagogical and administrative purposes, with a particular focus on the widely used, free internet videoconferencing application, Skype. Todd Bryant, language technology specialist at Dickinson College, will discuss uses of the tool for the instruction of language, and present the Mixxer, an online application he developed for finding conversation partners for language learning. David Clapp, director of the Office of International Students and Off-Campus Studies at Wabash College, will discuss the use of Skype by his office to connect with students in advance of, during, and after programs, and the impact its use has had on recruitment for programs, student satisfaction, administrative effectiveness, and the costs of running programs.

Participants will

  • explore the features of Skype
  • discuss its current and potential use in higher education
  • begin developing best practices for its use in programs and courses
  • investigate its features and limitations in comparison with other programs

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For more information and registration instructions see NITLE – Video Conferencing for Global Education.

University of Michigan’s Islamic Manuscripts collection going online – AnnArbor.com

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This is an interesting project, an effort to turn the cataloging of a distinct and unusual set of texts to the scholarly community as a whole.

The University of Michigan Special Collections Library needs help cataloguing its vast Islamic Manuscripts Collection.

But the library doesn’t plan to hire an expert. Instead, almost all of its 1,250 pieces are being scanned in-house to put the work on the Internet.

And the library hopes interested scholars will get involved…
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“It will be presented to the public in Wiki or blog-type interface, so people can comment on what they see. In that way, we hope we can get help from scholars all over the world in identifying the manuscripts and cataloguing them properly,” said Peggy Daub, director of Special Collections.

Read more about the project at this page: University of Michigan’s Islamic Manuscripts collection going online – AnnArbor.com.

(Thanks to Nancy Millichap)

Silicon Valley should step up, help Iranians

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In a recent SF Gate Open Forum Post, Cyrus Farivar, a freelance technology journalist from California, looks at the ways in which technology has been used as a tool in the pro-democracy movement, official efforts to thrwart that, and technology developments that had made it more difficult for them to do so. He writes

But now that Iran has been experiencing turmoil surrounding its recent election, many Bay Area technology leaders finally realize the importance their technology and services can play in shaping world events. As foreign media have been kicked out of the country, information technology services suddenly have become a crucial tool to get and receive information from Iran.

Twitter famously received a call from the U.S. Department of State nearly two weeks ago asking the company to postpone its scheduled maintenance to suit those in Tehran’s time zone, rather than those on Pacific time.

Facebook recently added Persian language support for its iconic social networking site. Google took things to an entirely new level by launching its Persian version of Google translate, which allows for decent machine translation between English and Persian and vice versa. But why this newfound attention to the Persian language (and Iran) took so long remains a mystery. Google’s translation capability for Estonian even came online before Persian.

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So instead of superficial support, like Twitter users changing their avatars to green to support Iran’s reformist movement, Silicon Valley minds and money should pool resources as a way to help Iranians get around this information blockade by providing easier-to-use proxies, anonymizers and maybe even unfiltered Internet access through hardware.

Long-range Wi-Fi, 3G, satellite or other wireless communications devices from Iran’s neighboring countries or even the Persian Gulf could be used to get faster and better information in and out of Iran. One Arizona company, Space Data, even advertises the capability to use helium-filled balloons to provide Internet and mobile phone access. Much of Iran could theoretically be covered with one or two such balloons.

All of that may sound crazy, but not helping Iranian reformers at their darkest hour would be even crazier.

Read the whole article at: Silicon Valley should step up, help Iranians, the San Francisco Chronicle.