Blogs

It all started when Dave Newport at UC-Boulder (I think it was Dave, but looking back I can't find the specifics) said good things about the book "Understanding the Social Dimension of Sustainability."

A few thoughts (and lingering questions) about Coursera's news today.

Academics of my generation probably harbor bitter memories of the mythical “great wave of retirements” that was going to open up all those faculty jobs. Apparently, in Illinois, that wave is finally happening. It’s driven by pension panic, rather than by normal demographic change, but a wave is a wave.

Andrew Blum takes the name of his great book on the physical Internet, the Internet infrastructure, from Senator Ted Stevens' famous quote.

During the extravaganza known as Blackboard World, I was asked to share "the best piece of advice that a teacher ever gave me." Pondering the question for a moment, my thoughts turned to someone who I've always thought of as my favorite teacher. To most people, his name was Clyde. For me, he'll always be known as Grandpa. My grandfather didn't go to a fancy college. His traditional education was limited in that he didn't graduate from high school. However, as the son of German immigrants who farmed land in Iowa, his learning was largely experiential. His financial acumen, knowledge of machinery, and wisdom were generated via decades of hands-on experience.

Don't get me wrong – book reviews often offer telling insights about the reviewer as well as, hopefully, the book under consideration. They are often fun to read, if only for the small jabs that reviewers make when the (dubious) benefits of anonymity are removed. My favorite is: “The text had minimal typographical errors.”

A friend of mine once told me she heard that 80% of people, when asked, say they are “writing a book” (at least, in their head). I don’t know where she got this “statistic,” it may not accurately represent the population at all, but I like the idea that so many people have a book sitting in their mind. Hey, I’m one of those 75% with a half-completed book on the back burner waiting for…what? Inspiration? Perseverance? Time? I think all of the above.

MOOCs are all the rage, and there is nothing wrong with that, although don't count on it lasting in its...