2007 Final Grades · 204 days ago
What better time to put together a list of favorite songs from the last year than the final week of the Fall ’07 term, which is usually spent tying up the last four months of work in a nice little package known as the “Final Grade Sheet”. See:
The National- Mistaken for Strangers 1
LCD Soundsystem- Someone Great
White Stripes- Icky Thump 2
Radiohead- Reckoner
Kanye West- Good Morning
Feist- The Park
Battles- Tonto
Band of Horses- No One’s Gonna Love You
Iron & Wine- Boy With a Coin
Spoon- Underdog
Arcade Fire- Intervention
Kings of Leon On Call
1. Hands down, my favorite song of the year.
2. Contains the best line of year.
— Jamie Gladfelter
Your thoughts? [11]
Amazon Kindle, eBooks, Online Learning · 228 days ago
As someone who teaches from half a dozen or so textbooks at any given time and travels by bicycle, it is with great interest that I read about a new product released by Amazon today: Kindle
It doesn’t take much of an imagination to see what sort of an impact a widely adopted ebook reader would have on online education. The question is: Is Kindle that revolutionary product, or will it have an impact more along the lines of the Sony Reader?
At first glance, the advantages appear to be the constant EVDO connectivity, good battery life, E Ink, and relatively low marginal cost of use (ebooks said to cost $9.99). I am, however, worried that the start-up costs for this device ($399) will be prohibitive despite the lower marginal cost of ebooks. Also, I am curious as to what type of agreement has been reached with textbook publishers. Will we start to see more 1 year “rentals” of textbooks with the option to purchase at the end of the term?
A lot of questions surround the Kindle, but it is interesting enough that I will try my damnedest to get my hands on one this holiday season. I doubt that the Kindle is as revolutionary as Amazon claims it be, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it is a significant step towards an inevitable destination.
— Jamie Gladfelter
Your thoughts? [20]
Freakonomics Blog Post · 256 days ago
A week ago today I was lucky enough to be a part of a Freakonomics blog post about online education.
There was a lot of good discussion in the comments section and I’ve heard from several readers who have an interest in online education. In addition, I’ve enjoyed participating in several other blogs that have linked to the Freakonomics story. If you’d like to discuss any of these topics further, please feel free to email me directly. You can find the required information on the Contact page.
— Jamie Gladfelter
Audio Inspiration · 259 days ago
— Jamie Gladfelter
Your thoughts? [11]
Reusable Learning Objects, Costs, Benefits · 267 days ago
In a previous post I discussed how the cost/benefit structure of high quality reusable educational objects is such that it doesn’t make much sense for an individual professor (especially part-time) to invest the time and effort to create these components:
“(Specialized online instructors) have more incentive to create these sort of supplements than an entire college does. It is very likely that an online instructor who has specialized in a certain course will teach the course as many times in one term as an entire college does in a year. The only entity that has more incentive to create course-specific learning objects are publishers. “
A supporting example (clickable):
Does it make any economic sense for a professor who teaches a macroeconomics course a few times year to create a simulation that allows the student to manipulate economic policies of an entire country based upon fictional economic data, news, and the current political climate, all in the hopes of controlling inflation, decreasing unemployment, increasing growth, and getting re-elected?
— Jamie Gladfelter
Your thoughts? [9]