tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-47997439143392939782024-03-05T11:27:55.502+00:00Thoughts in TransitA blog for more speculative pieces on the nature of learning and educationLarry Cuffehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00369944489322957884noreply@blogger.comBlogger72125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4799743914339293978.post-60524064263448995462024-02-10T21:24:00.001+00:002024-02-10T21:24:18.731+00:00<p> Nature</p><p>I've just read a report on how 20 minutes of Nature, three times a week are good for you, and how the benifits improve it the nature is wilder. that is Wilderness vs.calming city park.</p><p>I've thought for some time about a related concept, the idea of a field density of human decisions. I feel more comfortable, in a location where the density of human decisions around me is low.</p><p>Beaches, forests, mountains, and conversly I feel very stressed in cities, or crowds, where the decision density is high.</p><p>Just a thought. <br /></p><p> <br /></p>Larry Cuffehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00369944489322957884noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4799743914339293978.post-91082317673824391952023-05-22T23:39:00.003+01:002023-05-22T23:39:31.628+01:00The peacemaker Colt, and AI as guardians of Etiquette.<p> My Cousin Nancy, sent me a poem, she had written on her phone. The phone refused to letter her use the work Damn, telling her that she was better than that.</p><p>A hundred years before, there was a theory that having an armed citizenry in the old, rosy and romantic west, ensured that it was a polite society.</p><p>Currently there are some areas of the US with very high levels of gun ownership, particularly among the criminal classes, but the evidence is still out, as to whether this has resulted in politer public life. I suspect it has not.</p><p>Returning to the phone, enforcing standards of discourse. The work around it to use a broader vocabulary, and perhaps regional terms, for which the phone is unable to pick up a double meaning. I can see language becoming increasingly local, and dependent on dialect, as phones take on a greater and greater role of policing word use.</p><p>More echo chambers and birdwhistles.</p><p>Once more the law of unintended consequences rears its ugly head.</p><p><br /></p>Larry Cuffehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00369944489322957884noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4799743914339293978.post-84014244860227347302023-05-20T23:44:00.001+01:002023-05-20T23:44:26.333+01:00Are we reading or Thinking<p> I've just finished reading a short paper by Edmund Gettier. Its pretty much standard fare for any student of modern philosophy, and can be found by a trivial google search. His paper attacking the concept of Justified True Belief, was perhaps anticipated in part by Russel's example of Alice, and the Clock, but this is common in academia, as often a field is ripe for a new concept.</p><p>It did not cite Russell, though it did Cite A.J Ayer, whose work on the Problem of Knowledge had been published previously.</p><p>Both these papers are considered important in their field, and I think were considered to be so well known that they might not need citing, at that time. </p><p>On a personal note, as in this is just my opinion, I think that as the universities have spread their wings to include more and more people, there has been a change in emphasis in academic literature away from thinking and original ideas, and towards citations and Authorities, in what is know as “Scholarship”. This was the way of the schoolmen, and is similar to the Confucian approach to education.</p><p>These may not be the most fruitful of paths to follow for creativity and innovation.</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Courier; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Edmund Gettier <i>Is justified True Belief Knowledge?</i> Analysis. vol. 23 (1966).</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Courier; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">A. J. Ayer. <i>The Problem of Knowledge</i> McMillan (London, 1956).</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Courier; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p>Larry Cuffehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00369944489322957884noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4799743914339293978.post-56331813262639042822023-05-17T21:17:00.004+01:002023-05-18T10:57:38.369+01:00AI AI its off to work we go AI AiAi.<p><br /></p><p>We sit on the cusp of an AI revolution, and the explosive development of ChatGPT and its ilk have finally</p><p>woken the media to the creeping presence of AI driven tools in everyday life. For a very long time AI was like controlled Nuclear Fusion, progress was just around the corner.</p><p>Nuclear Fusion has yet to become commercially viable, but AI is now sucking in money as if the word "bubble" never existed.</p><p>So perhaps a few thoughts here. </p><p>AI is not one thing there are many different AI methods out there. They are behind recommender systems, speech recognition, autonomous driving, smart speakers and so forth.</p><p>Word is probably the most commonly used program which uses AI, without most people being aware of it.</p><p>AI challenges our ideas of putting together ethical frameworks for use. </p><p>A framework which supports Transparency and explainability, and the right to be removed from the model, along the lines of European GDPR legislation, </p><p>Has nothing to say about the thought of one million two inch long autonomous drones equipped with movement recognition and munitions, being shipped to an enemy port to enforce a curfew for a week.</p><p>Dystopias abound.</p><p>On the other hand the potential to use pattern recognition to synthesize new drugs or medicines, or the Idea of a mental pattern recognition pacemaker, which could intercept a seizure and close it down, is tempting.</p><p>So far, all the proposals for education I've seen have been very conventional, but perhaps a future deep learning algorithm could examine the practice of many teachers, and identify teachable moments, and work out whats the best way of maximising learning.</p><p>I've been teaching AI for the past two years, and first encountered it in 1982-3. During that time I have been privileged to encounter many humans who's mental landscapes are very different in the way they are wired or in their ability to interact with others. Many of these encounters have been in therapeutic settings.</p><p>Studying AI has given me insights into how many different ways of thinking there are, and into just how many ways humans differ from mental models.</p><p>This blog is called thoughts in transit, and I put it down as just that a location for ideas which are still travelling and which have not yet come together.</p><p>One final thought. In trying to understand the coming AI technological revolution, the closest model I found in existing technology is electricity.</p><p>Something who's ubiquity we take for granted which permeate's almost every aspect of our world.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>Larry Cuffehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00369944489322957884noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4799743914339293978.post-62069398207782244352023-03-12T21:02:00.000+00:002023-03-12T21:02:12.821+00:00summative assessment seen as harmful.I went on a visit to a school open day for parents of prospective students, and I took the oppertunity to do a survey of the teachers present. I was asking about IT use in the main, but I asked the religion teacher how you teach religion. Well this obviously depends on the course, and as she said she is not looking to convert, but to inform and there is a lot of comparative religion material in the course. However one remark struck me: She said the students were generally fine and interested in first and second year, but when they got to third year and realized that there was an exam at the end of it, teaching them became more up-hill work.Larry Cuffehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00369944489322957884noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4799743914339293978.post-48465277438282204992017-10-09T22:25:00.001+01:002017-10-09T22:25:36.125+01:00Its been a whileI hope to re-engage here. This has always been a personal space for my own musings, and the fact that it is publicly viewable, is a property which I use to force me to exert some editorial control as opposed to just random typing. I think writing about educational matters is a useful discipline, as is a significant part of reflective self directed CPD.<br />
To anyone who has followed me in the past, expect more here, I'm working on a couple of posts which will rollout when they're ready.Larry Cuffehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00369944489322957884noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4799743914339293978.post-69463229755043244002015-10-30T23:38:00.001+00:002015-10-30T23:38:27.272+00:00Thoughts from Thinking and speech (Vygotsky)<div class="MsoNormal">
I'm returning to thinking about education as a practice, and this has involved me in reading more theory over the past couple of weeks. To take a break this evening, I decided to watch a <a href="https://vimeo.com/10069459">video </a>from Nicolai Veresov on Vygotsky. In watching it, I was drawing an analogy between speech and teaching, and came up with the following thoughts.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Teaching is a means of
social interaction. We lose the sense of it if we break it down into its
component parts.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Teaching combines the
function of social interaction and the function of thinking.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">View Teaching as a
unity of thinking and communication.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The social world is the
engine of development. Other factors control the rate, but are not the engine. (pure Vygotsky here)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Adult teaching is a
function of society. If you want to truly understand it, you have to see how its assumptions developed
in the child. That is, consider the educational histories of both the students, and the teachers.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
Larry Cuffehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00369944489322957884noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4799743914339293978.post-67469635854974199712013-06-09T22:27:00.000+01:002013-06-09T22:27:07.995+01:00Marshal McLuhan and hot and cold media and other thoughts for eLearning<div class="MsoNormal">
Marshal McLuhan and hot and cold media.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In building a blended eLearning resource for online
learning, it behoves us (you don’t get to use that word often) to take a look
over our shoulders at Marshal McLuhan’s work on media in the sixties.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Radio vs. TV. We find that students are often more inclined
to download course materials as an Mp3 audio filer rather than as a MP4 Video.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
McLuhan had this taped. Radio is a cool medium. It does not require
our total attention. For eLearning this may not seem like something we want but
we have to look beyond the immediate. The Mp3 file may be listened to multiple
times as the student drives to work, goes for a work out in the Jim etc.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Video on the other hand is a hot medium it requires total
engagement and its difficult to combine absorbing this material with driving a
car for instance.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So use video sparingly. Use it as a welcome to the course
maybe and to demonstrate specific content for which it is the most compact way
of presenting it.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Present it in small chunks, and if possible allow the user
to alter the speed of playback.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The next piece of McLuhan is the idea that the medium is the
message. And associated with it, the idea that the content of any medium is
always another medium. This one plays into our practice in two ways; the first
is to be aware of what we are saying by our choice of delivery system. If I prescribe
the exact sequence in which you will peruse the learning content I am giving
you, I may think that I am making informed and sensible choices on your behalf
as to what is the most appropriate sequence in which to consume my content. You
on the other hand may see it as an arrogant and inflexible set of assumptions
as to just how ignorant the learner is.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The second concept
here, that the content of any medium is another medium is more straightforward to
apply. If my video is just me speaking, then the video content is audio. If my audio
is me reading from a prepared script, then the content is text.<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
Maybe we are in a position to cut out some of the media middlemen.<o:p></o:p></div>
Larry Cuffehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00369944489322957884noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4799743914339293978.post-85025926955753539762013-02-08T10:58:00.000+00:002013-02-08T10:58:01.860+00:00Thoughts after watching “a day made of glass” and the “Microsoft Productivity future vision” pieces.
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Thoughts after watching “a day made of glass” and the “Microsoft
Productivity future vision” pieces.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Education is about building internalized models of reality.
These models are then used to inform our actions with respect to possible futures.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">In the corning model, a model of light mixing was played
with in a very high tech way on a light table. This example was presumably
chosen as content which would be immediately clear when you saw it on the video
clip.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The learning involved a group collaborating
to explore a cool educational artefact. As a model of collaborative and group
education it was a nice example.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
park scene showing the dinosaurs was another easy pick up with its reference to
the movie Jurassic park. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">The Microsoft educational vision was weaker. Although the
whole tone of the video was corporate, the educational segment showed drill and
kill math teaching with 20 year old graphics of a Bear.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The use of high tech to avoid the effort of
opening the fridge door… How cool/pointless was that?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Education is a conversation. It is a communication. It is
articulated structured and may contain Satori moments, but at the end of the
day it’s a two way flow of information.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The corning vision showed an enriched channel with more interactions
going in more directions. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">My vote Corning: +1, Microsoft: try again.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
Larry Cuffehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00369944489322957884noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4799743914339293978.post-11364933972490625502012-12-23T00:02:00.002+00:002012-12-23T00:02:49.006+00:00Moocing into the future<br />
<br />
There has been a lot of comment about MOOC providers such as Udacity or Coursera being a disruptive technology in the filed of higher ed, and this is hard to argue with, although the process is likely to be more protracted than many commentators think. However just because change is taking place, it doesn't mean that we have to be antediluvian about it.<br />
I know this is a weak analogy, but I'm sure that when the motor car came out there were some people complaining about the effect the innovation was going to have on the lives of ostlers, grooms and dung collectors. <br />
We don't know where new online and automated forms of education will take us. What we do know, is that they have the potential to take us someplace very far from the current state of affairs. This potential may involve some creative destruction, and toppling of sacred cows, but it is up to us to steer it towards the creative the innovative and the good, and away from the banal and the mass market.<br />
Larry Cuffehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00369944489322957884noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4799743914339293978.post-23368611950592966902012-11-04T22:12:00.001+00:002012-11-04T22:12:48.407+00:00A short thought on MOOCS<br />
There are a number of different versions of MOOC and I would suggest that the versions promoted by George Siemens, and Stephen Downs et al, are the most interesting. I have taken part in some of these, and they are a loo sly organized scrum of people generating and discussing content around some core theme. Very much a collaborative and distributed effort which at times has much of the characteristics of an extended research conference.<br />
The very recent development of Massive enrollment courses from such sites as Alison, Coursera and Udacity, are somewhat different, and strike me as being a somewhat transitional use of technology, like early plastics trying to look like more traditional materials and failing.<br />
I have taken part in courses from all of the above. If one views these courses in the traditional manner, then the ability to respond to students is extremely limited, they scale very poorly, and the fall out rates are horrendous. However if you view them as something more akin to an encyclopedia, or revision notes for a topic, then the idea of casual usage of the material, without taking all the tests or listening to all the lectures becomes more understandable, and provides a new model for learning.<br />
When I taught physics at university level, I used to tell my students that there was a very similar course available on line through MIT's open course-ware initiative. I said that if there were topics where my students found my presentation confusing that I recommended Prof Lewin's treatment as an alternative. As he was paid more than me, and had been teaching the material for longer, it could potentially be clearer. My students responded well to this.<br />
So I think we should view these courses as another tool to use in our teaching, playing a role similar to that of an academic library where you went to look for other books on a subject to either explore it further or get a better explanation. All contributing to the ultimate task of dispelling ignorance.<br />
Larry Cuffehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00369944489322957884noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4799743914339293978.post-65513299098777304782012-10-30T09:48:00.001+00:002012-10-30T09:48:17.982+00:00Thoughts on teaching math with calculators.<br />
<div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">I teach some elementary math’s to adult learners, and I am mandated to teach them how to use a calculator. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">When I produce the calculators about ½ way through the course I ask them what a calculator is for. I then explain that it is for when the calculations get to big to do by hand, and we then move on to calculate some really big numbers, like the amount of sand on the local beach, the number of snowflakes that fell in the last big storm, the number of breaths they have taken so far in their lives etc. I use the calculator to introduce the idea of estimating and approximating, and we then try to make an estimate of how good our answers are. The idea is that, now you have the skills, the calculator opens up a whole new vista of doable problems.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">That’s for my mainstream students. For some of the students, maybe two in a hundred, I teach more specific calculator use, when I have decided that these are students who don’t have the ability at this time of mastering the skills of hand calculation. This may be an innate deficit, or it may be the product of years of confrontational math education resulting in the student being terrified by the prospect of looking at numbers in any constructive manner whatsoever.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">These are the students for whom the calculator will become the mathematical equivalent of dragon dictate, and just as dragon dictate can open up the world of generating texts to individuals who would be unable to write or use a keyboard, I see the calculator as giving access to mathematical results to people who would otherwise be incapable of getting there.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">Finally to mention some specific skills. I teach adding fractions by cross multiplying and reducing the result. I explain that there are other methods which they may already know, but that I am avoiding them because they don’t always work, and we don’t have time to go through all the special cases.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">I do this, not because I’m short on time, but because often I find students abandoned their attempts to understand fractions at the LCD/LCM stage. Fractions are key, and I explain that these operations are important because if they come to algebra many of the same methods will work. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">I spend almost a full class on the concept of dividing by a half.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">I teach long multiplication, again stressing that this is a method which will go forward into algebra, and I teach long division in the same way for the same reasons.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">The key in all of this is that I am teaching skills which will continue to be of value, both in general life, and in the students further math’s careers, should they care to pursue them.<o:p></o:p></span></div>Larry Cuffehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00369944489322957884noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4799743914339293978.post-57477728150169888892012-07-16T22:29:00.002+01:002012-07-16T22:29:20.767+01:00Instructional design and Tacit learning<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">These are
terms which hover around the borderland between education and training. Instructional design came originally from a military
need to train lots of people quickly to a uniform standard in the Second World
War, and a desire to take educational theory and use it to produce a effective
framework for people trained to a specific set of competences. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_M._Gagn%C3%A9">Gagne</a> is a key
name here. Within that context, Tacit knowledge is the collection of nonverbal
learning that SME’s (Subject matter experts) gain from experience which can be
difficult to encode into a formal description of the specified learning
outcomes of a course. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Once we
step out of that context it becomes more difficult. I see education proceeding
from very well defined learning goals, such the ability to tie a shoe lace, or to
add decimal numbers up two places of decimals at primary level, through less
concrete goals at secondary level such as “Students will understand the causes
of the civil war”. As education proceeds
through third level, we encounter the sort of concepts embodied in the idea of
a liberal education, or Newman’s idea of a university. Here packing what is
being learnt into a Specified Learning Objectives framework becomes less appropriate.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">I am referring
by analogy to this type of learning also as Tacit learning, and in particular I
am thinking of the kind of skills which
we develop as a professional, which are open ended, and don’t have set limits. Good teachers, I think, don’t stop learning
when they are qualified, and learn from a diverse set of sources including
their students, and their practice.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">This is an
area of learning for which I can find few instructional design models, and
which I am interested in exploring further.<o:p></o:p></span></div>Larry Cuffehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00369944489322957884noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4799743914339293978.post-92038036837779444092012-04-04T20:28:00.001+01:002012-04-04T20:28:10.844+01:00Searching for assesment<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">This piece
is a result of reading this blog post </span><a href="http://opencontent.org/blog/archives/2237">http://opencontent.org/blog/archives/2237</a><span lang="EN-US"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">There has
recently been a considerable amount of controversy about employers asking for
job candidates Facebook credentials in order to find out what sort of people
they were, and what sort of things they got up to. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">The
critical issue seems to revolve about the distinction between a users public
and private life.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">In practice
we may be judged by the company we keep.
This issue is particularly apt because Facebook is primarily a social network,
and unless I am a policeman, and my friends are mostly journalists, it’s not
totally clear that this information is relevant to an employer.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Be that as
it may, David Wiley of Bringham Young University has come up with another scary evaluation metric. How about letting your employer, or your
prospective college, see your search history?
Using “Big Data” tools, this could give either power broker a deep
insight into whom they are potentially entering into a long term relationship
with.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">I think,
with a moment’s thought, that this one too comes into the too much information
category, and would fail European data protection legislation on the basis of
informed consent and need to know grounds.
It would also leave a potential employer open to charges of
discrimination, by providing them with information on which to make a discriminatory
decision.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">The problem
again comes in because of the umbrella nature of such a request. It grabs
everything, and a lot of it is outside the scope of any possible legitimate use
of the data.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Now how
about if I am asking my students to do research? Suppose I’m asking them to document their web
journey in search of enlightenment on the subject using membranes to provide
high altitude diesel trains with oxygen enriched air for combustion.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">In this
case, it could be legitimate, and could provide a valuable anti plagiarism
tool. It shows how long they were on
task, It shows how efficiently they used the web, and it shows how successful
they were while they were doing it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">I could
potentially have a number of target websites which I expected them to find, and
I could evaluate them on a richer metric which could combine time on task with
success in locating information, and a subjective assessment of their search
methodology. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Because the
search could be seen as coursework, and could be limited to a defined time
period, we could avoid the privacy issues, which down check the more general
histories covered above. As for an
employer, I could ask the candidate in advance to provide a transcript of an
hour spent researching the company prior to the interview. This could be an effective test of their
skills and prior knowledge in the field.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>Larry Cuffehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00369944489322957884noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4799743914339293978.post-67713584280931024602012-04-02T20:41:00.001+01:002012-04-02T20:41:43.185+01:00Teachers are peasants!Introducing innovation to teachers is difficult, because they operate in a subsistence manner. i.e. They operate at the limit of their resources and are required to get a crop in each and every time.Hence the peasant analogy. This makes them disinclined to take risks with sweeping changes which could make them loose a years crop, but open to small labor saving incremental changes.Larry Cuffehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00369944489322957884noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4799743914339293978.post-40588022586758910242012-03-28T23:36:00.001+01:002012-03-30T08:09:05.095+01:00Entropy as a measure of class learningI has just occurred to me that as teachers we work a piece of un-physical magic as we lead or guide a class through a course. <br />
My reasoning goes as follows. At the start of the class, all the students are unknowns. We don't know how well they learn, how hard they are going to work, or what their ability is.<br />
So if we define the entropy of the system in terms of all the possible outcomes, any student could potentially end up at any point in our class and the entropy is high.<br />
in formula S = k Log(n)<br />
where n is the number of possible states of the system, that is the number of different potential outcomes.<br />
If I have 30 students in the class, and I mark out of 100, then this comes to<br />
S = k 30 Log (100) = 60 k.<br />
After the first mid term, when 30% of the marks have been decided,<br />
S = k 30 Log (70) = 55.4 k.<br />
After the second midterm with only 40% of the marks to be decided by the final,<br />
S = k 30 Log (40) = 48.1 k.
<br />
After the final, when all outcomes are clear,<br />
S = 0.<br />
As the semester (term) goes on the probable trajectory of each student becomes more constrained. with the system eventually resolving into one final configuration, the final marks, and the uncertainty about the progress of any given student has reduced to zero. In thermodynamic terms, we have cooled the system by removing the entropy and condensed the educational gas which the students represented, into a set of distinct phases, one for each possible student outcome (mark)..<br />
<br />
We have reduced the entropy of the system Can I say cool?Larry Cuffehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00369944489322957884noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4799743914339293978.post-90981205907319097922012-03-24T23:30:00.001+00:002012-03-24T23:30:57.390+00:00Learning is one dimensionalNot all of it. But I have encountered a problem and its made me think of learning in a new way. I wanted to use Moodle to asses student learning styles, this would involve asking the questions from a test bank, and then rating their answers along a number of different dimensions of learning preference.<br />
I have not solved this problem. We normally assign students to a point along a one dimensional continuum which runs from didn't understand a thing I taught them in class to has complete understanding of everything covered.<br />
Our aspiration as teachers is to move student along that scale, with the hope that they will end up at the I know everything end of it.<br />
We are neglecting the possibility that their learning is moving in several different dimensions at once. They may be failing my maths course, but becoming more reflective and capable persons through knowing their limitations.<br />
They may be learning a lot about the interpretation of data and the application of geometry, but failing to pick up on the abstractions of algebra. <br />
In most subjects, if I think about it, I can find several different strands or dimensions of learning, but we insist that at all times is all part of one bag which we judge solely by how full it is.<br />
<br />
Maybe its time to make our subjects more multidimensional.Larry Cuffehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00369944489322957884noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4799743914339293978.post-46871259802289166502012-02-04T08:51:00.002+00:002012-02-04T14:14:11.849+00:00An online course with a good pedigree CS101<br />
<div class="western" lang="en-IE" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" lang="en-IE" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Last fall, I
did an free online course in AI last autumn with Professor Sebastion
Thrun of Stanford.</div>
<div class="western" lang="en-IE" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
The course
was very good, and about 22,000 student completed it.</div>
<div class="western" lang="en-IE" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Professor
Thrun has now joined a new startup company, <a href="http://www.udacity.com/">Udacity</a>, who are offering
two courses to start out. One involves learning how to program a robotic car (Proffesor Thrun was part of the team who won $2,000000 for building aan autonomous, self driving car.) and the second is about
building a search engine.</div>
<div class="western" lang="en-IE" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
I think
either of these course would be a great project for a TY student, or
would be great for someone looking to increse or brush up their
computer knowlege.</div>
<div class="western" lang="en-IE" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
I have
enrolled in the build a search engine course, which aims to teach
complete beginners computer programing in seven weeks.</div>
<div class="western" lang="en-IE" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" lang="en-IE" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
I'm doing
so to brush up my programming skills, posibly learn a new language
and to learn about programming to interface to the web.</div>
<div class="western" lang="en-IE" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" lang="en-IE" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
I'm
passing this information on as I fell it may be of interest to other
members of the teaching comunity.</div>
<div class="western" lang="en-IE" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" lang="en-IE" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
The web
site is here:</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<a href="http://www.udacity.com/cs#101"><span lang="en-IE">http://www.udacity.com/cs#101</span></a></div>
<div class="western" lang="en-IE" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
and I
would invite you to at least view the introductory video, which
includes a recomendation by one of the founders of Google.</div>
<div class="western" lang="en-IE" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<br />
<br />Larry Cuffehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00369944489322957884noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4799743914339293978.post-32202283431258168402012-01-08T19:11:00.001+00:002012-01-08T19:11:45.369+00:00Reading brain waves at the Mayo clinic (not!)<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">I received an
e-mail alert about the video on this page:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><a href="http://inside-the-brain.com/2012/01/08/typing-with-brain-waves/">http://inside-the-brain.com/2012/01/08/typing-with-brain-waves/</a></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">and my
interest was immediately sparked. The idea of using brain waves to type or at
least to communicate with the shipboard computer was a staple of science
fiction in my youth, and as more and more of the technology from that genre
becomes blasé (personnel communicator = mobile phone, Babel fish = Google
translate…)it was interesting to see that this one is starting to fall.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">It turns
out not to be the case.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">In this
experimental set up the simulated quadriplegic unable to communicate stares at
a screen on which a pattern of flashing letters is formed. When the letter that
they were staring at flashes, this is picked up by a series of electrodes monitoring
their brainwave activity and this is deemed to reading the letters out of the person’s
brain.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">It’s
not.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is just detecting which flashing
light a person is looking at.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In order
for this to work, the person must be able to move their eyeballs to fixate on a
particular letter, and must be able to see.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">However we
already have technology that can watch your eyeballs to see what you are
looking at, and its been around for a while.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Cannon used
this in cameras to see what part of the image should be used for autofocus
since the early 1990’s.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">More
details are here.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><a href="http://www.diku.dk/hjemmesider/ansatte/panic/eyegaze/node22.html">http://www.diku.dk/hjemmesider/ansatte/panic/eyegaze/node22.html</a></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">and if you
want to play with a very similar application down load camera mouse here:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><a href="http://cameramouse.org/">http://cameramouse.org/</a></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">This doesn’t
do eyeball tracking, but will allow you to control a computer even if your arms
and legs don’t work in a consistent way.</span></div>Larry Cuffehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00369944489322957884noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4799743914339293978.post-91763754969439822642011-12-08T23:03:00.001+00:002011-12-08T23:17:50.734+00:00Google CurrentsGoogle Currents: This is as another cool tool from the google stable. We are used to the sequence now. Some new piece of web wizadry comes out from google and after playing with it, you bookmark it to explore in detail later and by the time you get to it, google have already depreciated it and its. gone.(body, wave, code...)<br />
I sincerly hope this doesn't happen with currents which hit the net a couple of hours ago. This is a verry nice new thing for Christmas.I want you to go play with it now so as to ensure that we get to keep this one.<br />
On the face of it is simply an app for android or apple platforms which gathers together online magazine and blog subscriptions into one simple tool. This underwhelming description belies its genius. <br />
Its like walking up to a newstand where all your favorite magizines are being displayed, and someone says take a free copy. Its hard to pin down what precisly is so cool about this except that the interface is exceptionaly well designed. Its like the magic of the iphone all over again. <br />
Dont take my word for it, go play!<br />
More here:<br />
<a href="http://googlemobile.blogspot.com/2011/12/google-currents-is-hot-off-press.html">http://googlemobile.blogspot.com/2011/12/google-currents-is-hot-off-press.html</a>Larry Cuffehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00369944489322957884noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4799743914339293978.post-64391800716033829842011-09-30T17:20:00.002+01:002011-09-30T17:20:35.918+01:00Rethinking further education!<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
The argument in favor of
government funding of education, is that an educated population is for the
general benefit of the citizenry.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
The argument in favor of
doing this via a loan provision rather than by direct subsidy is that this
provides a handle whereby market mechanisms can dictate subject choices.</div>
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education is a worthy one, and one of relevance to me where some of my adult
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<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
On this program we have been
instructed that it is no longer considered appropriate to enroll post retirement
individuals, as they are unlikely to re-enter the workforce.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt;">
This restriction arises because the money comes
from the European Social Fund which was set up to reduce differences in
prosperity and living standards across the EU and is devoted to promoting
employment.</div>
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The model here is clearly two fold.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt;">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>1)
Education impacts on society primarily by increasing the amount and quality of
employment. This argument is suspect when you consider the high levels of
education and unemployment in some of the countries involved in the Arab
spring.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt;">
2) Differences in prosperity in the EU can be
reduced by making Germany pay for the rest of us. This may work, but may not
have been what the politicians were thinking of when they framed the
legislation. </div>
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It may be time to rethink this program as EU funding is getting tight. </div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";">it
may now be the right time to give all such students a good background in the Stioc
philosophy, rather than waving the chimera of "wonderful hi tech jobs
waiting" in front of them.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
Larry Cuffehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00369944489322957884noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4799743914339293978.post-54432783717216417202011-09-26T00:21:00.000+01:002011-09-26T00:21:30.591+01:00Relativity and how we do science: Some first thoughts.<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Last Friday,
I heard the tail end of a news item indicating that scientists had observed
particles travelling faster than light.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>This refutes Einstein’s theory of special relativity, and is not the
first time that one or other piece of scientific work has come out punching
holes in this classic reformulation of how the universe works.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The last time I read such claims it was Al
Kelly, who published something in an Irish engineering journal, and the time
before that I think it was someone who had two box shaped areas deep
underground in Greenland where it was predicted to fail for about three milliseconds
twice a year.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">As someone claiming
to be a scientist, we are used to such things, and treat them with the same
sense of intelligent enquiry with which we approach a stage magician. We look
carefully and try to work out what the trick is.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">This is
part of our natural defences. Our belief in science builds in filters which
allow to concentrate on the significant changes which move theory forward and
filer out all the noise of magnets purifying water, anti gravity and alien
visitations.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Later that
morning I heard that it was scientist from CERN, and that they had seen
something like 15,000 such particles.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">This moves
it from being a silly season story to something that needs more attention.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I now started chasing up more information,
read the preprint and noted that the author list seemed to have around 100
scientists, who are operating within their field, and all of whom have a lot to
lose if they have got this wrong. (Scientists are classily good at getting
things wrong once they get away from their speciality, Pons and Fleischmann and
Pauling on mega doses of vitamin C being examples of this.) I go back and chase
up what I know of superluminal activity. Cherenkoff radiation happens when
particles exceed the speed of light in a medium, Loci i.e. non material things
such as the point where a rotating light beam hits a wall if far enough away
from it, or the scan point of the electron beam hitting an oscilloscope screen
can travel faster than the speed of light too. And there is a whole theory of
faster than light particles, Tachyons, which come out of second solution set to
the equations, and which can be imagined as slowing down as you add energy to
them.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">I’m not
going to comment on the truth or otherwise of the claims. My physics is not
sharp enough to punch holes in the paper as presented. What interests me is how
I evaluate the claims.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My initial
reaction was a time worn and healthy scientific scepticism.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">When the
evidence was re presented with a powerful ad hominum argument (CERN) I then go
to evaluate the argument on its internal consistency by examining the paper,
and look to my network of knowledge to see where this new piece of evidence
fits in.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">This is, I
think, how most of us do science. </span></div>
Larry Cuffehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00369944489322957884noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4799743914339293978.post-49377329091413440642011-09-21T22:55:00.001+01:002011-09-21T22:55:17.973+01:00Starting into a new MOOC I was pleased to encounter an old friend, who I never met, now dead, Richard Feynman.<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">I’ve signed
up for a MOOC on creativity or maybe connectionism (actually </span>Creativity
and Multicultural Communication) <span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">and one of the readings for this week was a memoir by Daniel Hill on
Richard Feynman and The Connection Machine. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Richard Feynman
is one of my greats.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In this memoir we see him in what has to be
his greatest role, as a communicator.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Feynman diagrams for physicists are a way of making some very complicated
mathematics seem simple. This was Richards great gift: to communicate across
cultural divides and explore strange areas of science, often showing the
natives things they were unaware of.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In
exploring other territories he sometimes found the obvious, but he also often
saw things that local practitioners were to close to see, such as the reduction
of risk assessments as they went up the NASA management chain in the challenger
crash, where he was a key player in discovering the cause of the disaster.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">I think
this is probably why this reading was included, as an example of a practitioner
of multicultural communication.</span></div>
Larry Cuffehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00369944489322957884noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4799743914339293978.post-88211830909474273922011-09-17T22:52:00.000+01:002011-09-17T22:52:08.863+01:00Education is not science!This piece evolved from a comment on a blog piece <a href="http://seansreflectivejournal.blogspot.com/2011/08/wendal-talpax-wentor-eloitan-tor-dal.html">here</a> <br />
<br />
As some one moving from a background as a computational chemist into education there has been a very significant culture change.<br />Within science, we are used to a solution space with one of a few optimal solutions. We believe in the concept of an objective truth which can, in priciple, for the most part, be established by a series of reproducable experimental tests.<br />
Education is different, its like art: There is no best picture, there are a load of different pictures, some of which need a lot of theory to make them work, some of which just look good. No picture appeals to every one, though some of them can be condemned by just about every one as being a load of crap. And, at the high end there's a specialized group of art critics and artists who practice in little specialized bubbles where they play glass bead games with each other. <br /><br />Its not a science, and we don't have educational engineering as a specialty yet.<br /><br />.Larry Cuffehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00369944489322957884noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4799743914339293978.post-75121676501589647222011-05-31T08:44:00.000+01:002011-05-31T08:44:36.592+01:00Practical aspects of the LMS<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:View>Normal</w:View> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:TrackMoves/> <w:TrackFormatting/> <w:DoNotShowRevisions/> <w:DoNotPrintRevisions/> <w:DoNotShowMarkup/> <w:DoNotShowComments/> <w:DoNotShowInsertionsAndDeletions/> <w:DoNotShowPropertyChanges/> <w:PunctuationKerning/> <w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/> <w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:DoNotPromoteQF/> <w:LidThemeOther>EN-US</w:LidThemeOther> <w:LidThemeAsian>X-NONE</w:LidThemeAsian> <w:LidThemeComplexScript>X-NONE</w:LidThemeComplexScript> <w:Compatibility> <w:BreakWrappedTables/> <w:SnapToGridInCell/> <w:WrapTextWithPunct/> <w:UseAsianBreakRules/> <w:DontGrowAutofit/> <w:SplitPgBreakAndParaMark/> <w:DontVertAlignCellWithSp/> <w:DontBreakConstrainedForcedTables/> <w:DontVertAlignInTxbx/> <w:Word11KerningPairs/> <w:CachedColBalance/> </w:Compatibility> <w:BrowserLevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel> <m:mathPr> <m:mathFont m:val="Cambria Math"/> <m:brkBin m:val="before"/> <m:brkBinSub m:val="--"/> <m:smallFrac m:val="off"/> <m:dispDef/> <m:lMargin m:val="0"/> <m:rMargin m:val="0"/> <m:defJc m:val="centerGroup"/> <m:wrapIndent m:val="1440"/> <m:intLim m:val="subSup"/> <m:naryLim m:val="undOvr"/> </m:mathPr></w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:LatentStyles DefLockedState="false" DefUnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">A variable should be defined in one place in a program. It should be clear to the programmer where that should be. This makes it easy to change.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Now in Blackboard, a learning management system (LMS), say I want to set a mid term.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Where should the date for that reside? In the syllabus? in the online submission system? in the course calendar? In the course modules? In an announcement? In an email sent to all participants? on a discussion board?</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Now there is a good case to be made for putting it in a number of these places, and most instructors will do so.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Now the fun comes when the course is bundled up and redeployed the following year. Ideally you change the date in one place and it propagates to all the target documents, but in practice.... dream on. These are issues which have been tackled in Computer Science. they are solved problems, but in LMS world we seem to be back at the point where RPGIII and Cobol ruled the world. Typically you have to track through your course and find every place where you placed a date and change it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is fine until some student comes up and tells you that the missed the midterm because the date was wrong, and can show you one that you missed.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">What I’d like would be a scheduler which would allow me to roll back the course to the start each time I present it, and then present me with a calendar of proposed changes, based on how I built the course last time, and allow me to customize these changes as they go in.</div><div class="MsoNormal">It doesn’t give me a unique point for inputting the mid term date, but it would prompt me with each of the places I inputted it the first time.</div>Larry Cuffehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00369944489322957884noreply@blogger.com0