Archive for August, 2010
Bruce Schneier speaks at the 2010 EWI Cybersecurity Summit.
Granular explicit control over privacy is unnatural…
Electronic commerce produces data. Everything we do produces data. (in ways traditional cash-based commerce did not)
Businesses and governments are forcibly changing social norms. Who gets to make the rules?
We are not Google’s customer. We are actually Google’s product, that they sell to their customer.
Data is the pollution problem of the 21st century.
I just found this introduction to eLearning and blended learning video, produced by the United Nations University Vice Rectorate in Europe (UNU-ViE). It’s very basic, but that’s the point of the video. Could come in handy in talking with faculty members – sometimes they have interesting concepts of what eLearning is (and isn’t)…
Sticky Concepts on E-learning from UNU-ViE on Vimeo.
they didn’t seem to mind the fog and vapour, but I’d bet they were a little cold…
I took the route near the duck pond this morning – something I hadn’t done all summer because of construction on campus.
we got up to the double digits this afternoon, after nearly dropping down to freezing overnight. interesting, blustery skies in this early autumn…
The storm sewer grates in our neighbourhood have been painted with reminders not to pour stuff down the drains. Hopefully, everyone will remember to run a block downhill to check if they’re allowed to dump toxic chemicals in front of their house.
But where ELSE are we supposed to dump our fish?
I recently signed up for a cell phone plan. The cheapest deal I could manage was $50/month, plus taxes and fees, and involved a 3 year contract commitment. That’s $1800 over the term of the contract. And I got to pay a substantial chunk of the price of the phone, as well.
If I let myself be talked into the various bells and whistles offered as add-ons to the monthly plan, I’d be paying nearly $100/month. For a phone.
Wireless North took a look at cell phone plan rates in a few countries and it looks like the feeling of being taken for a ride is probably pretty common here in Canada.
George posted a quick note about how an interview he gave for an article in The Chronicle of Higher Education was published. Behind a paywall. The Chronicle took an interview, freely given by everyone (except, I assume, for the paid interviewer and editor?), on the topic of openness in education, and decided to lock it behind a mechanism constructed to block access to it.
I’m not going to link to The Chronicle article (or, more accurately, anything on The Chronicle, ever), so here’s a screenshot of the short snippet of the article that they publish “openly” – I love how they cut it off in mid-sentence… Taking the what? I must know! Here’s my credit card number! Please! Take it!
This great textured ceiling is not long for this world. It’ll be stripped out and replaced with something else as part of the renovation.
A physicist and a biochemist have a conversation about grades, decide that grades are dumb.
We were talking (and surprisingly agreeing) that grades were dumb. What would happen if we stopped grading? Wouldn’t that be awesome?
So, what would happen if there were no grades? Here are some thoughts.
Read the post for some of their thoughts. What’s interesting to me is that these aren’t long-haired lefty liberal hippies calling for The End of Education. They are scientists and educators, realizing that grades don’t do what we think they do, and how that negatively effects the education experience.
Overlooking the Bow River and Canada Olympic Park, along the Bowmont pathway in Silver Springs.