Teaching

There is no other post possible right now than one on the Iranian elections, where Ahmadinejad’s claimed victory over Moussavi has resulted in continued fallout. In western perceptions, this is going to be a watershed moment for Twitter, the moment where it proves its worth. Communication coming out of Iran is at a crawl due to lack of cell and Internet connectivity, and journalists have been officially banned from the streets.

One of the hot-button topics in higher ed is the role of adjunct instructors. Part-time professors (or adjuncts, for short) are frequently employed - an english department in one large state school I know of is composed of 2/3 adjuncts - but are rarely talked about. I agree with Ihssen and Kaurin, who state that there is a crucial need for better communication between adjuncts and tenure-track professors.

For the most part, Taylor’s recent op-ed piece in the New York Times repeats sensible recommendations for helping the sorry state of higher education. I agree that abolishing tenure and using more applied approaches to topics are necessary. As for Ph.D programs, there are simply too many over-educated individuals out there for a finite number of tenure-track (TT) teaching positions. As “Piled High & Deeper” puts it, it’s a ponzi scheme.

Companies seem to be intertwining capitalist goals with moral ones. Google’s primary rule is “don’t be evil,” and just about every company now touts its sustainable and green policies. Guy Kawasaki advises in “Art of the Start” that products should make meaning, specifically, “make the world a better place.” One of my students questioned how this could be a realistic goal for a company, or even an advisable one. She was exactly correct; how sensible is this?

Students in every discipline in college are expected to absorb not only core concepts, but a range of demanding and often arcane applications. Journalists learn CMS; artists are expected to understand the web and Dreamweaver; and musicians must understand online marketing. In a way, this is a step forward. There is no reason why students shouldn’t also have a diverse set of skills. It adds to their marketability and problem-solving abilities. The problem is that teaching these skills is just not suitable for the classroom environment where an understanding of theory and core topics is also to be expected. Time is taken away from central themes, and put instead towards tools that are difficult to learn in a short period of time.

Gartner recently released a report identifying "cloud computing" as an area of future expansion. This is one of the first signs of the business potential of web-based programs. These are accessed and distributed in a lightweight form online, rather than a bulky program you run on your computer. There's a lot of potential here for online communities. Increased migration to an online environment naturally means that programs that were previously not networked might be.

Strangely, there aren’t many open-source social network packages out there. Some commercial packages such as PHPFox will give you access to an “unlocked” code base, but are built off of antiquated technologies (such as using tables for layout) and are not free. Few are truly open-source, free, well-designed, and use sane development standards. Most are rather limited and are cashing in on the now well-established popularity of social network sites.

Last week, the Associated Press (AP) took a stance against quotations by bloggers they felt were inappropriate. The company requested that the Drudge Retort remove seven quotations of AP articles, ranging from 39 to 79 words in length. Since then, they backed down and rescinded their request in light of criticism. Jim Kennedy, vice president and strategy director for AP, said, “We are not trying to sue bloggers,” and voiced a desire to keep looking for viable solutions.

Last semester I taught a groundbreaking course in the Annenberg Program on Online Communities at USC’s Annenberg School for Communication. It’s the first (and as far as I know, the only) one-year MA program that focuses exclusively on building and cultivating online communities. Titled “Technologies for Online Communities,” it’s a grad-level introduction to technical concepts and managerial/collaborative methodologies.