Every few years there’s a new consumer technology product that makes a wave in the public consciousness. Some of them make a huge difference to faculty and students; some of them don’t. How to tell the difference? I’ve never seen any tool that by its very existence changed the nature of teaching. It’s not true of slates and chalk, it’s […]
» Read moreI know there’s a lot of confusion surrounding these hot topics when I hear from a faculty member who asks me “I don’t understand what the hype is about – isn’t this just like posting readings in Blackboard?” None of these topics is just like posting readings in Blackboard, but none of these things is really the same as any […]
» Read moreCompared to London’s Underground or Paris’ Metro, the New York subway seems to be a mess. It’s full, it’s filthy, and occasionally it catches on fire. There’s a reason for this, I’ve been told: the European systems were largely rebuilt after World War II, thus leapfrogging New York’s system which is just as old or older but has had significantly […]
» Read moreThis was my summer project – updating a sadly old computer lab on campus into a collaborative learning and study space for students. You need more photos to get the full effect but here’s an article from Hofstra’s Chronicle, the student newspaper. My student staff did a great job doing the design and managing the build and so far the […]
» Read moreEven my students are showing up knowing WordPress. For now the faculty computing blog I write remains at facultycomputing.blogspot.com; I will figure out how to double-entry those articles here or just add them in a frame. I do tweet and facebook when a new article goes up! I will post a short summary of the New York Times Schools for […]
» Read moreIt’s no longer possible to ignore the potential of integrating social networking with your teaching. Students actually prefer to have academic systems separate from their Facebook accounts, so when something happens like Missouri forbidding its K-12 teachers from having any contact with their students via Facebook, I don’t panic too much. Yes, it sets the cause of modernizing teaching back […]
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