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I just discover that From 1888 to 1890, the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg was literally overwhelmed by a transatlantic migration wave, the so-called Argentinienfieber - an expression which could be translated into English by Argentine fever. In less than two years, more than one thousand Luxembourgers - representing 0.5 per cent of the entire population - decided to emigrate to Argentina.

HI Myriam can you explain me how this post is related to the "interacting with media and technology" topic of the entire folder

Sorry, wrong folder. It still interested! :)

The University of Luxembourg just started the process of evaluating/rating the classes and programs that are offered throughout the year. The students are the main actors in this process as their input is requested. The link and article that I propose, relates to a topic related to evaluating the quality of education, focusing on the teachers. The usefulness and validity of self-selected online student ratings of faculty is taken into consideration, as these ratings appear to be increasing in importance, particularly as students utilize them as guides in their choice of instructors. Validity is investigated by analyzing the pattern of relationships of online ratings for 399 randomly selected faculty. Analysis suggests that online ratings in their current form may be useful, even though possible abuses could limit validity in specific instances. The authors of the research believe that this study is timely and important, as Ratemyprofessor.com ratings are growing in usage and popularity with students, their parents, academics and authorities that have the duty of evaluating further the educational programs that are offered throughout universities and colleges. Such ratings affect student decisions about which professors to take and in addition, students are developing expectations of instructors based on peer comments in online ratings websites. If the websites do not provide valid information, then the ratings would not provide accurate information and thus students would probably respond to correct the ratings. On the other hand, to the extent that online ratings can be demonstrated as valid measures of instructors' abilities to inspire learning, online ratings have potential value. Increased transparency of the ratings should have virtuous effects for students to select professors who conform to their learning styles. And instructors should improve their teaching methods in order to improve their ratings.

Simina, this is very interesting. Thanks for sharing it with us. I agree with the article and with you. Evaluating the professors/teachers/instructors and the classes is a great tool to improve the system. It is like when us, the students ask for feedback as an essential step towards our development. Besides that, if the students have access to these evaluations it can be of great value for both for the student and for the professor or teacher. The student can base his/her choices on something and the professor can count only on students to participate in his/her class who are actually interested on class. Like this we avoid these classes we thought would be very interesting but it turns out are not corresponding at all to the description, and the professors/teachers don't need to deal with uninterested students, which sometimes can spoil the class.

Even in Montana social media has become important. It's true it is "en train de changer" the way politics is run. In a place with so few people, each person could really have a direct line to candidates and I suppose a more direct dialogue with the people is much easier. However, as the article states, could this lead to a more polarizing political field--meaning only strong supporters of a candidate would follow them through social media, and thus the candidate is really only talking to people on one even extreme side? Is social media used in politics in Luxembourg? It could have a strong impact here, seeing as how there are even half as many people in this country as in Montana! Oh and off the subject, Montana is so small. The senator Baucus referred to in the article bought my grandpa's car from us after he died.