My guess is not. Most presidents have been administrators for awhile, and before that they probably didn’t teach online since that’s a relatively new phenomenon. But that didn’t stop Pew from interviewing a bunch of them on the topic, as reported in the Nov. 11 issue of the Chonicle’s “Online Learning”. Of course, the irony of reading a critique of online learning in a newspaper journal is not lost on me, but nontheless….The article claims that presidents are generally split on online learning. How do these presidents know? Are they relying on reports from assessment officers, anecdotal evidence, financial data, recalcitrant faculty at traditional colleges, or what? Not to denigrate presidents, but at all the colleges and universities where I’ve worked, presidents have been only distantly connected to pedagogy, and even then not in any capacity as an expert. They are usually good, smart people whose primary purpose is to bring money and fame to their institutions and to serve at a public face, but they aren’t talking to people like me about the nuts and bolts of online learning. I live and breath this stuff, but no president has ever once wanted to have a conversation with me about it. So why isn’t Pew interviewing people like me instead of presidents?

It is currently 2:47 PM and it is getting dark. This is the misery that is solstice season in the Pacific NW, and the price we pay for our glorious summers. Watching this has special significance at this moment:

http://laughingsquid.com/a-history-of-the-sky-a-yearlong-time-lapse-of-the-san-francisco-sky-shown-in-mosaic-of-360-simultaneous-days/

Best of all, you can hear how Moby has made wonderful music freely available for non-commercial movie projects. Here’s the link to access these lovely tracks:

http://mobygratis.com/film-music.html

Like everyone else, I am horrified that Joe Paterno allowed a child rapist to remain on his coaching staff for years. I have visited State College and the Paterno name was absolutely revered there, so this can only bring huge pain to everyone there. I don’t buy Paterno’s foolish “in hindsight I shoulda” mea culpa; if his own feeble moral compass didn’t kick in, he could hardly ignore that the Catholic church was going through well publicized prosecutions for child rape before and during that same time frame. He should be fired and thoroughly ashamed of himself, no question. I wouldn’t be surprised to find that laws were broken – or that there should be laws enacted to prevent this crazy protectionism at the expense of a child.

Once again I am struck by how precious trust and reputation are to all of us. We educators especially must remain above reproach in any dealings with young people, because we have unique powers with them. We can mold and shape, inspire and empower – and we can also crush. As a gay person, I am extremely sensitive to this reality. I’m certainly old enough to remember Measure 9 and the other campaigns that came before it. There are hatemongers desperately trying to connect pedophiles to gay people as I write, though largely (thank heavens) they are now ignored. How is it possible that anyone is allowed to become an educator without any awareness of the need for this inviolable trust?

Like a lot of administrators, I have multiple passwords for the same service. For example, I have a user password for network storage, and I also have an administrative password for network storage. Since we require regular password changes with ever increasingly difficult memetics and since my administrative accounts don’t get updated regularly, I get pretty frustrated pretty fast. I have literally dozens of things to log into, and roughly a dozen passwords to track. So, LastPass has become an essential tool. It not only lets me use one master password to log into everything, but it automatically logs me in on any service I request. Plus, it does all this for me at home too. It gets high marks for security, but it’s best feature is it keeps me SANE.

I wrote this a few weeks ago in response to a discussion I was having with some faculty about the value of distance learning vs. residential learning:

I don’t think we need to choose between models; I think we are in a great position to cherry-pick from the best models. We can offer the highly personalized, spontaneous FTF teaching environment, and we can offer ubiquitous access to connective technologies that allow us the freedom to teach and learn in ways that meet the needs of students with different learning styles. We can offer these things in a blended course formats or in discrete formats, depending on the student, subject and course needs. Our online model can continually be enriched by our FTF campus, and vice-versa.

One of the uncomfortable truths of for-profit colleges is that they can show proof of improved learning outcomes, which would be impossible without technology affordances and standards. Whether we like it or not, students/parents/employers do see college as a means of achieving the ability to compete for jobs, and so we had better be able to prove we can measure up or else be relegated to world of elite (and largely unemployed) hobbyists. For-profit colleges don’t pretend to be research institutes; they are teaching institutions, which is a serious problem for small colleges that don’t tie P&T to teaching but rather to research.

To compete in this future as a small liberal arts college, we should offer the best in human engagement while proving that we have the acuity to use technology where it makes sense to do so (and more and more often, it does make sense). So long as we can prove we vigorously make use of the modern tools needed to showcase the skills we teach, we can outperform “business model” schools by providing a social, personalized and communally connected experience for undergraduates. The faculty who adapt to the use of technological resources most nimbly will be the ones who evolve into the most successful professors of tomorrow. We should value teaching at least as much as research, so I (not too surprisingly) think we should enable faculty to develop these skills.

Ok, stepping down off the soap box now and returning to my alter-ego status as humble administrator.

Interesting development – we now have Google Apps (so that we can try out and potentially make use of the newly available Bboogle building block created by Northwestern). We’re getting it up and running on the BBLearn test server now.

What’s interesting is that someone created this account in Google Teams for us, some time ago (I know because they used an old logo, and because there have been a number of questions about this mysterious Linfield Google Apps account that occasionally surfaces but doesn’t seem to do anything). Google made me authenticate before allowing me to change our account – but how did the original person get an account? How did they do it without anyone at ITS knowing? I hope this is a relic of times gone past, because that makes me a tad nervous.

… and we mice will play. Our faculty are at a retreat to discuss strategic planning. I was invited to the last retreat, but we have a different set of leaders now so I am not. I am happy I don’t have to work all weekend, but I can’t help but feel a bit slighted.

On the other hand, maybe I’m just bypassing a lot of pointless arguing. Our faculty, as a whole, don’t seem inclined to read the writing on the proverbial wall when it comes to educational technology. The talk du jour is of the unbundled university, and in fact I am one of it’s biggest champions.

I have felt for years that our existing model does not serve students well; it serves faculty well, and I am not interested in preserving faculty careers. My passion is teaching and learning, which is completely different – it’s the students that I care about. Since faculty care about preserving the status quo more than they care about the needs of students, who can blame students for looking for a better solution if one should arise? And that better solution is here, whether traditional faculty like it or not.

Right now, I am taking classes online with 1,000 or so of my peers from all over the world. In one of my classes, we have 81 organizers (who take on the role of facilitators/helpers/faculty). We all help one another and share information freely. I’ve learned a ton already. There are no grades (just tasks), no timetables, no rules about which tools I have to use or how much I chatter. I can get quick feedback and help on whatever I share. Accreditation is on the way via some more forward-thinking institutions, like HASTAC. It’s low cost or free. I don’t have to wait for the dullards in the class to catch up to me, and those who think faster don’t have to wait on me. I can skip over the stuff I already know.

There isn’t a huge variety of content out there yet, but it’s growing incredibly fast. Employers are paying attention because the the knowledge and skills are more flexibly defined and custom fitted to their needs (this sort of adaptability is simply not available with the tenure system).

I have to ask: If I were to take on my higher education path in today’s world, why would I pay for three degrees that resulted in a mixed educational experience in a format that I had to endure rather than enjoy?

If the faculty at the retreat aren’t asking themselves the same question, then I’d just be wasting my time there.

Now I’m learning HTML5, which is fun with a lot of people and ideas/resources from all over the world.

http://p2pu.org/en/groups/html-introduction/content/install-an-html-text-editor/

beta hero badge

Today, I am earning myself a webcraft badge over at P2PU. I can give some, and I hope I can get some too. I’ve been all over the badges/HASTAC/MOOC world for the past month, because it’s something I’ve dreamed about ever since I got involved in educational technology. Wahoo!

http://p2pu.org/en/schools/school-of-webcraft/