Blog Juice for Educational Technology

The whole integrating technology discussion that many have been chronicling of late has been sticking in my craw for a couple of reasons. First, a couple of weeks ago I had a bad teacher day while I was doing some training, the kind that really gets me pessimistic about how difficult a road this is […]

Secretary Spellings announced the award of over $23 million in grants to 74 school districts in 26 states to help them enhance and fortify their emergency response and crisis management plans.

I got a response from Senator Johnny Isakson in reference to the letter I had sent about DOPA. While I appreciate that he did respond (I only got an automated response so far from my other Senator, Saxby Chambliss), I wish he had responded to some of my concerns. The gist of his letter:
I […]

Barbara Ganley continues to inspire me. Her post, Responding to & Evaluationg Writing is so timely. I’ve had “writing on my mind” for one of my thinkpieces for some time.  She is headed to a Faculty Writing Retreat where she will be leading a discussion on how they respond to student writing across the curriculum […]

Secretary Spellings issued a statement regarding the anniversary of Hurricane Katrina.

President Bush announced his intention to nominate Sara Martinez Tucker to serve as Under Secretary of Education.

“Something is happening this semester that has never happened to me before,” writes Kristin Luker, a professor of sociology at the University of California at Berkeley, on a forum for professors. ”[M]ore than half of my lecture class is just not showing up.” Judging by the responses to Ms. Luker’s observation, she’s not alone.

A number of professors at Berkeley say their lecture halls are looking a bit more spacious lately, and most agree that online forums, course-management sites, podcasts, and even e-mail are largely to blame.

If classroom attrition is, as the Berkeley forum suggests, a virtual inevitability, professors will need to decide if it’s a troubling trend or simply a fact of 21st-century life. There is no consensus. Diane Harley, a researcher with Berkeley’s Center for Studies in Higher Education, tells the Contra Costa Times that professors should embrace technology that makes students’ “concepts of space and time much more fluid.” But another Berkeley professor admits that dwindling class sizes have given him something of “an existential crisis.”

A question for professors: Have you noticed an exodus from the lecture hall? If so, is that cause for concern? —Brock Read

Second Life—the virtual world in which users can buy property, watch concerts, and take classes—continues to capture the attention of scholars and students, according to the Boston Phoenix.

The newspaper profiles several researchers who have taken up residence in the world, including Sarah Robbins, a graduate student in rhetoric and composition at Ball State University. Ms. Robbins meets with undergraduates in her English-composition course twice a week—once in the flesh, and once on Second Life, where her avatar, “Intellagirl Tully,” holds court on an island that includes a student lounge, a tiki bar, and dorms. —Brock Read

For more on Second Life, see an article from The Chronicle by Andrea L. Foster.

Freeload Press, a fledgling publisher in Minnesota, generated a good deal of buzz this month when it announced plans to offer free downloadable college textbooks that come peppered with ads (The Chronicle, August 16). It is an intriguing idea, says Randall Stross, a professor of business at San Jose State University, but it’s not much of a business plan.

In The New York Times, Mr. Stross argues that most scholars still consider textbooks to be sacred spaces. Required readings, he says, are “no more likely to be considered an appropriate place for corporate ads than the classroom lectern (or the instructor’s forehead).”

Even if Freeload could convince professors that ads are not an enemy to scholarship, Mr. Stross says, the company doesn’t seem to have the momentum to become much more than “a concept with dubious prospects.” The company’s e-books haven’t earned especially favorable reviews, and even its name—which “conjures an image of party crashers cadging free beer, not a publishing concern striving for the highest intellectual standards”—fails to inspire confidence. —Brock Read

Even when they haven’t come littered with ads, e-books have been slow to catch on with scholars, students, and the reading public. Why haven’t they made more of an impact? According to David H. Rothman, author of the blog TeleRead, e-books just aren’t very consumer-friendly.

“In the past few decades, at least 20 clashing e-book formats have popped up, including the infamous Microsoft Reader,” Mr. Rothman writes for Publishers Weekly, “and no format has performed strongly enough to crush the others.” As a result, even high-priced e-book-reading devices often cannot display certain formats of digital text. Until the e-book industry develops products that can be more widely used, Mr. Rothman writes, consumers are likely to be frustrated. —Brock Read

A full-fledged flap has developed in the eLearning community over a U.S. patent awarded last January–but announced only last month–to Blackboard Inc., the market leader in learning management system (LMS) applications….

The weather was beautiful, the company enjoyable and the speakers stimulating. Where were we? At the Melbourne Writers Festival, of course. As Rosemary Cameron, festival Director said, the presence of the students on students days brings the “festiva…