Blogs

When a friend and colleague creates something that benefits the higher education community, I generally try to get the word out about it in as many places as possible. That was the case last year when Mike Petroff debuted EDUtweetups -- "the home of higher ed hashtags." The site was a terrific resource for anyone who wanted to keep track of the many higher education related hashtags and events.

As a grad student, I’ve successfully proposed courses as part of applying for teaching opportunities within my home institution. I proposed and taught a thematic, first-year composition class for my home department three times. I proposed and taught an introductory medical humanities course for the Collins Living-Learning Center at my home institution. I won a teaching assistantship in the department where I earned my PhD minor, and proposing a summer course was a part of the application process. My success partly stems from being an instructor of record for seven years. I’ve also been on the other side of the process: as a member of my department’s Composition Committee, I helped faculty to evaluate course proposals submitted by graduate students (but not in the same years mine were under consideration!).

If the intention of Mr. Obiang and his million-dollar facelift advisers is to remake his image without changing the circumstances that tainted it, the controversy has already compromised that intention.

This is the time of year when the blahs set in. Winter is technically over, but teaser spring days followed by dreary rain, rain, then more rain make it hard for me to find my get-up-and-go. I shouldn’t be surprised because it seems to happen every year about this time. Somehow this year is a little tougher than usual, though; 2012 has been a long year already, and it’s only just begun.

A look at another education startup, GoodSemester, that's build a learning and collaboration platform. It's not an LMS, the founder Jason Rappaport insists. Even so, I opted to hold this story until today since we were all a-twitter yesterday about the Blackboard news. After all, GoodSemester is another indication that many education entrepreneurs are trying to reimagine the LMS.

It goes both ways. You can't do one properly without the other. The challenge is how the CIO manages this reality when the "I" in their title is often a misnomer? CIOs seemingly have all the responsibility for information, but often none of the authority.

What do you think of Blackboard's big announcement that they are buying Moodlerooms and Netspot, and bringing Chuck Severance and the leadership of these companies to a new Open Source Services business?

Several alert readers sent me links to this piece from the Hartford Courant. Apparently, the Nutmeg state is considering abolishing standalone remedial courses in community colleges altogether, starting in 2014. They’ll allow colleges to replace them with “as needed” remediation offered in the context of credit-bearing courses.