ALT Lab

""We were initially torn between collaborating with universities and working outside the world of college," Thrun tells me. The San Jose State pilot offered the answer. "These were students from difficult neighborhoods, without good access to computers, and with all kinds of challenges in their lives," he says. "It's a group for which this medium is not a good fit.""

Free online driving f2f enrollment

"It seems disruption is hard when poor people insist on existing. Thrun has the right to fail. That's just business. But he shouldn't have the right to fail students like those at San Jose State and the public universities that serve them for the sake of doing business."

Apparently, "confrontation" is the sole province of f-2-f teaching. I say, "hogwash!"

Certainly no one argues about or discusses difficult concepts online.

I wonder what this would look like as an integrated curricular/thematic element at VCU? I'm not a fan of the video style but certain elements about the whole site are worth noting/exploring.

"More than a technique, PCR is a concept, that enables molecular biologists to think in new ways of their object of study, DNA, to ask genes new questions. Opening the way to new experiments, it literally frees the imagination. Some even use PCR machines as fridges. After all a thermocycler is nothing but an intelligent heating and cooling block. It can be set on 4ºC for 48 hours, to conserve the result of an experiment over the week-end. "

""One of the things I learned about the world of art," Teller says, "is there are people who really want to believe in magic, that artists are supernatural beings-there was some guy who could walk up and do that. But art is work like anything else-concentration, physical pain. Part of the subject of this movie is that a great work of art should seem to have magically sprung like a miracle on the wall. But to get that miracle is an enormous, aggravating pain." To see Vermeer as "a god" makes him "a discouraging bore," Teller went on. But if you think of him as a genius artist and an inventor, he becomes a hero: "Now he can inspire." "

Kind of what I was thinking for #DS106 and the upcoming VCU MOOCs- only using the mother blog for more than just Twitter and thinking through a couple other display options. 

With a link to a useful primer on competency-based education

"And without a common language for describing what works and what doesn't, our work isn't being pushed or explored further. I see example after example appearing online, that people have clearly spent time and thought into making, which cover the same ground and also share the same mistakes. Experimentation is great if you're learning. If you're not, it's just expensive. The words we've been using so far, like "intuitive" and "immersive," are overloaded with meaning. Let's drop them. What are we really trying to say? By pulling these words apart, we may find more precise ways that pinpoint the different problems we are trying to solve. "

If you haven't seen this, you should take a look. This is a bit old but worth seeing if you like webdesign/journalsim/media http://t.co/yJm4BdPzYH #ds106 - Tom Woodward (@twoodwar) December 4, 2013

If you haven't seen this, you should take a look. This is a bit old but worth seeing if you like webdesign/journalsim/media http://t.co/yJm4BdPzYH #ds106 - Tom Woodward (@twoodwar) December 4, 2013

"To repeat: I do not see the queen sacrifice as a desirable move for American higher education.  I do not relish the reduction of programs, nor the devastation inflicted on the lives of faculty.  But this seems to be a strategy colleges and universities can choose in our current climate, and we must discuss it openly."

Interesting guy to talk to etc. at some point. "In the 17th century, scholar-publishers created the first scientific journals, revolutionising the communication and practice of scholarship. Today, we're at the beginning of a second revolution, as academia slowly awakens to the tranformative potential of the Web.   I'm interested in both pushing this revolution forward, and in studying it as it happens. I'm investigating altmetrics: measuring scholarly impact over the social web instead of through traditional citation. I'm also interested in new publishing practices like scholarly tweeting, overlay journals, alternative peer review forms, and open access. These slides give a good idea of what I've been up to lately; my CV links to other recent publications and talks. "

"The way to "beat" this set of endless staircases is to turn around. Turning around will not take you back down the hallway that you used to get to the stairs; it will take you to a new room entirely. In most videogame-and in, y'know, actual rooms in real life-turning around will take you back to the place you just were. In Antichamber, going backwards often results in discovering a totally new area. "

THIS is how we ought to be thinking about assessment!

Fun little mashup activity...