EDUC 439/639 Social Networking - Fall 2012

"Our eyes are weird and often mislead us. But if you know the peculiarities of human vision, you can construct better designs. Not only do type designers utilize optical tricks for creating readable and well-balanced fonts, but it's also helpful for designers, who craft user-computer interaction."

"It's also one piece of evidence that changing the college trajectories of America's low-income students will require efforts more extensive than low-cost "nudges." "It's a good lesson in thinking about the limitations of these kinds of interventions," said Lindsay Page, a University of Pittsburgh researcher who has studied text messaging reminders to students. "Be cautious of the long-run benefits from $6 solutions.""

"We are seeing a surge in firms with offers to take institutions' data so that they can reformat it and make it available as dashboards, with trends and models. It is time to ask: Who is doing our data laundry, and why?"

"focusing on the next mega-institution or the gold-rush mentality that has garnered so much attention in online education is a distraction from this higher calling. For us, a mega model does not align with our core educational philosophy. We imagine that for the majority of universities, the mega-university concept is not only unrealistic, it is also anathema to their institutional philosophy. We look forward to joining efforts across higher education to embrace a chapter of fundamental transformation."

"Zapps are apps that you can use within the Zoom platform to help improve productivity and create more engaging experiences. No more switching between multiple applications on your desktop. Now you can quickly navigate to apps within the Zoom interface to streamline permissions, grant document accessibility, and collaborate on screen."

"Graduate programs should incorporate more courses focused explicitly on pedagogy. If teaching is 40 - 90% of most full-time faculty jobs in higher ed., pedagogical study should constitute at least 40% of the work graduate students do toward a graduate degree. I was recently laughed at by someone in a traditional academic discipline when I offered this as a provocation, but it feels hardly provocative to me. For some programs, even requiring a single graduate course in pedagogy would be a step in the right direction, but 40% of coursework seems an incredibly reasonable bar (even if also well out of current reach for many programs)."