Blogs

A few weeks ago, I graduated with my MA, and I’m now confronted with the question of “what next?”

This blog doesn’t address car repair, the Twilight series, Hungarian food, or speculation about the next Secretary of State. Its set of topics is relatively defined, as regular readers know. That’s not because I adjudge those other topics unworthy or uninteresting; if any of them strike your fancy, there’s no shortage of other places to read about them. It’s just that there’s a limit to the number of things I can address thoughtfully, and I don’t see much point in covering topics just to cover them. I’ve found a niche, and that’s where I work.

One of the most frequent comments I receive on student evaluations is that my enthusiasm for the subjects I teach is infectious. Students tell me that I help to enliven topics they would be otherwise uninterested in, and that my obvious joy for what I teach motivates them to enjoy the topics as well. This enthusiasm often translates into electrified classroom meetings that are full of lively discussion and collaboration between students. Regardless of the topic, there are very seldom days when I am met with silence from my students.

Is the Google Drive app an iTunes U app killer? Can the Google Drive ecosystem (web and apps) replace the Apple course content delivery ecosystem (Course Manager and the iTunes U app)?

The Institute of Medicine’s (IOM) proposal for harmonization misses the mark.

In the early nineties, when aerobics classes with canned music and fancy spandex fashion were all the rage, there was no way I’d ever be caught dead participating in such a group sweat fest. From what I’d heard about aerobics classes, there was lots of whooping and shouting, and the people I knew who were enthusiastic participants were 20-somethings with perfect figures. A group class like this was hardly the place for a shy, self-conscious person like me.

December is a cruel month for academics. More accurately, the stretch from Cyber Monday until Christmas is uniquely difficult.

Aaron Bady's excellent critique of Clay Shirky's thought provoking post "Napster, Udacity, and the Academy" provides a powerful window into our most important debates about how higher ed will evolve over the next few years. The comments to Bady's article, and Shirky's response to his critique, provide strong evidence of the power of an open exchange of ideas and views within an informed community.