If You Want to be Happy ...

FT.com email article

High Deductible Health Plans

Growing, but right for whom?

Patient Money - High-Deductible Health Plans Have Some Downsides - NYTimes.com

Plagiarism Part II - Stanley Bing

The Ontology of Plagiarism: Part Two - Opinionator Blog - NYTimes.com

Tony Geraci - - An extended discussion on child nutrition in BCPS

Re: Tim Ferriss Scam! Practical Tactics for Dealing with Haters

"I elaborated on a few points in an interview in the Netherlands with Amy-Mae Elliot, who originally posted them on Mashable in her piece Tim Ferriss: 7 Great Principles for Dealing with Haters..."

Tim Ferriss keynote The Next Web Conference 2010 - Love the Haters from Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten on Vimeo.

The Pharmacist is in

In Health Shift, More Patients Get Pharmacist’s Appointment - NYTimes.com

Senate Hearing on For-Profits to Feature Video of Government Undercover Investigation

Chronicle of Higher Education

July 29, 2010

Senate Hearing on For-Profits to Feature Video of Government Undercover Investigation
By Kelly Field

Washington

Government investigators will testify at a Senate hearing on Wednesday about an undercover inquiry into recruiting practices at for-profit colleges.

The hearing will feature video of college recruiters and admissions officers talking to the investigators, who were posing as students, Democratic aides told The Chronicle.

The aides would not say what the investigation, conducted by the Government Accountability Office, had found, only that it included a "nationally ...





Hearing on For-Profits to Feature Video of Government Undercover Investigation - Government - The Chronicle of Higher Education

NYT Editorial: Who Profits? Who Learns?

28JULY2010

Enrollment at for-profit colleges and trade schools has tripled in the last decade to about 1.8 million, or nearly 10 percent of the nation’s higher education students. These schools, partly because they serve poorer students who need more support, receive almost a quarter of the federal aid. This year, federal financing for financial aid is expected to total $145 billion.

Some for-profits provide an important service for students who don’t qualify academically for traditional colleges. Too many have been cited for enrolling students who have no chance of graduating and tossing them out once that flow of aid is exhausted.

The Obama administration is right to ...




Editorial - Who Profits? Who Learns? - NYTimes.com

Britain's First Private 'University College' Is Awarded Degree-Granting Powers

July 26, 2010, 12:10 PM ET

Britain's First Private 'University College' Is Awarded Degree-Granting Powers
As a sign of the growth of for-profit higher-education providers in Britain, on Monday the first private institution in the country was awarded the title of "university college," with the announcement that
...

Britain's First Private 'University College' Is Awarded Degree-Granting Powers - The Global Ticker - The Chronicle of Higher Education

For Profit Colleges: Does the Title Say It All?

July 25, 2010

Why Do You Think They're Called For-Profit Colleges?

Michael Morgenstern for The Chronicle
Enlarge Image

Michael Clifford believes that education is the only path to world peace. He never went to college, but sometimes he calls himself "Doctor." Jerry Falwell is one of his heroes. Clifford has made millions of dollars from government programs but doesn't seem to see the windfall that way. Improbably, he has come to symbolize the contradictions at the heart of the growing national debate over for-profit higher education.

Until recently,...


Why Do You Think They're Called For-Profit Colleges? - Commentary - The Chronicle of Higher Education

Food ads directed to children

From July 24, 2010 New York Times:

Ad Rules Stall, Keeping Cereal a Cartoon Staple
By WILLIAM NEUMAN
Published: July 23, 2010



U.S. Stalls in Its Push to Limit Food Ads Aimed at Children - NYTimes.com

Built by engineers for engineers: Microsoft

Microsoft's monopolistic practices does it no good when it must actually compete. Its organizational flabbiness and tone deaf approach to customers is in full force with consumer electronics:

A Youthful Market Spurns the Wares of Microsoft - NYTimes.com

Access to medicine index 2010

"The Index 2010 report covers 27 companies, comprising 20 originators and seven generics manufacturers. The ranking isand based on 106 indicators that measure activities across four strategic and seven technical areas. The research and analysis for the Index 2010 was conducted by RiskMetrics Group..."

The Index 2010 | Access to Medicine Index

CME and Corporate Relationships

Misgivings Grow Over Corporate Role in Keeping Doctors Current - NYTimes.com

Pew: How the Press (Failed /) Covered Health Care Reform

How the Press Covered Health Care Reform - Pew Research Center

Education as the Engine for Globalization

The Rise of the Global University: 5 New Tensions - Commentary - The Chronicle of Higher Education

Further along the road of medicalizing life ...

Maker Plays Up Sexual Disorder, With a Pill in Waiting - NYTimes.com

But is it only animal cruety?

If an aspect is preying on the weak, other early relationships permit the expression of this behavior.


The Animal-Cruelty Syndrome - NYTimes.com

A long fall from the Tylenol recall

Johnson and Johnson Seen as Uncooperative on Recall Inquiry - NYTimes.com

Donald Rumsfeld's Old Europe Tackles Modern Finance

FT.com / Brussels / Business regulation - Brussels to reveal rating agency plans

When your friends are few, rely on perspective to provide some shelter

FT.com / FT Trading Room / Regulation - Rating agencies face fresh questions

Who Knew Renting a Congressman Could Be So Cheap?

Assuming that there isn't invisible ink in the oath of office that commits members of Congress to oppose the public good, I can only assume that it doesn't take much to capture their hearts and minds ...

Halliburton campaign donations spike - Jake Sherman - POLITICO.com

In the spirit of who judges the judges ...

FT.com / US & Canada - Buffett bats off criticism of Moody’s

Telemedicine - at the point of no return?

Healing by 2-Way Video - The Rise of Telemedicine - NYTimes.com

How do the business and the clinical model converge for the benefit of all patients?

Are Fines Sufficient Disincentives or a Cost of Doing Business?

Curbing Drug-Company Abuses: Are Fines Enough?

Curbing Drug-Company Abuses: Are Fines Enough?

Unbound by Facts, Decency or Even Consistency

Unaccountable political cynicism ... will partisans provide consequences or continue to reward politicians based on the color of their jersey?

E.J. Dionne Jr. - Gulf oil spill offers a lesson in capitalism vs. socialism

Group Raises Issues About Online Drug Marketing

Group Raises Issues About Online Drug Marketing
By Juliana Gruenwald
The Center for Digital Democracy is raising concerns about proposals at the Food and Drug Administration to allow pharmaceutical companies to market drugs on social media and other Web sites...

http://techdailydose.nationaljournal.com/2010/05/group-raises-issues-about-onli.php

Lifelong Learning - Increasing its feasibility

N.Y. / Region
Returning to College, Without the Beer
By ARIEL KAMINER
Published: April 29, 2010

One Day University offers people who got their bachelor’s degree years before e-mail a chance to go to university classes again, but without all that drinking and flirting.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/02/nyregion/02critic.html

Useful Data related links

FINRA: 2009 National Financial Capability Study http://www.finrafoundation.org/resources/research/p120478

"The National Financial Capability Study established a baseline measure of the ability of Americans to manage their money, benchmarking four key indicators of financial capability and evaluating how these indicators vary with underlying demographic, behavioral, attitudinal and financial literacy characteristics. It consists of findings from three linked surveys ... "

Gapminder http://www.gapminder.org/

[From TED] Where to get Pivot http://blog.ted.com/2010/02/demo_where_to_g.php

IOM: Bridging the Evidence Gap in Obesity Prevention: A Framework to Inform Decision Making
http://www.iom.edu/Reports/2010/Bridging-the-Evidence-Gap-in-Obesity-Prevention-A-Framework-to-Inform-Decision-Making.aspx

PRISMA http://www.prisma-statement.org/

US Bureau of Economic Analysis http://www.bea.gov/

US Government DATA.gov

The Policy Studies Organization and Berkeley Electronic Press: World Medical & Health Policy
http://www.psocommons.org/wmhp>/

http://www.bepress.com/journals/

Post # 5: A Reflection

I dreaded the blogging assignment because I thought it would be too much preparatory technical reading - - instructions written by engineers and not actually for anyone to read and comprehend. While it seemed that it would be good to know how blogs work, given that I read them every day, I did not feel that I would have anything to say to the universe in general. It turns out that I was wrong about both setup/operations and posting.

There were four free hosting sites offered in the assignment and I had no reason to select one over the other. I did, however, want to avoid the one(s) with the steepest learning curve. Online evaluations were not particularly helpful so I asked people whom I know who do blog for their recommendations among the four and why. Blogger became the clear choice – it was simple yet powerful, linked with Google so it would have a coordinated interface, and the price was right (free).

As I start to think more about blogging post this assignment I think I will move away from Blogger and toward a paid site. It is my understanding that whatever is posted on Blogger becomes the property of Google. As much as I believe in social capital and contributing to the commons, I want to have more control over what could be a longer term body of communications.

Easy though Blogger is easy, and it is easy, almost every step had to be retraced and redone. With some repetition this quickly became less so, but I still sometimes wonder how to get to where I want to be from where I am. After the basics I experimented with a different format, with embedding and with gadgets. It has been fun to see some tangible results. Perhaps best of all, and unexpected, the comments from my friends (even if not posted) generated discussion and, for me, further reflection. That may have been the best result. As an asynchronous communication, blogging loses some of the person dimension that synchronous technology has, but the comments on the posts and the ability to receive comments in return, with all communications open to view by others, makes it more communal and less impersonal. Although Bates and Poole’s Table 3.1 A Classification of Educational Technologies by Structural Characteristics in Bates (2003) would place blogging under asynchronous two-way communication, its support for more varied information (personal profile, other links, following, favorites) made it feel like a hybrid between asynchronous and synchronous, even though it is not.

There have been more supports for generating ideas than I had expected - even deciding what to include in this reflective exercise: there was an article on "Application of Blogs to Support Reflective Learning Journals” (Pang 2009). The specific readings for this unit are all timely and address different dimensions of DE, however, I think that in addition to being good practice, it was critical that the assignment be based on readings beyond our two class texts. Neither Moore and Kearsley (2005) nor Bates and Poole (2003) have “blog” as a separate indexed item, or even listed as “web log,” in the back of the book.


Bates, A.W. & Poole, G. (2003). Effective Teaching with Technology in Higher Education: Foundations for Success. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Moore, M. G. & Kearsley, G. (2005). Distance Education: A Systems View. Belmont, CA: Thomson Wadsworth.

Pang, L. (2009). Application of blogs to support reflective learning journals. Retrieved from http://deoracle.org/online-pedagogy/teaching-strategies/application-of-blogs.html

Online Demos Should Be More Like Dating and Less Like Marriage

In class we are experimenting with different products that support online instruction, basically course management systems – mainly by reading articles about different media and technologies and through viewing demonstrations. It has been an awakening for me – the first link for a demonstration led me to a moodle’s site, where after two clicks I was at the demonstration page. At that point, I had to login using one of three different predefined names and passwords depending on the perspective I wanted to see: administrator, student or teacher. The screen was busy and even after I logged in as one of the three standard categories, I could not determine how to run the Demo. Not an auspicious beginning.
________________________________________
Moodle Demonstration Site
Welcome! This site is for you to try using the most recent stable released version of Moodle and to explore some courses which demonstrate a few of Moodle's many features.
Here are some demo accounts for you to use:
• Admin - username admin, password FunMood1ing!
• Teacher - username teacher, password FunMood1ing!
• Student - username student, password FunMood1ing!
The database and files are erased and restored to a clean state every hour on the hour, so don't worry if you make a mess.
Also note that you might not be the only person using one of the demo accounts at the same time, so you may see unexpected things happen occasionally
________________________________________

The next site, Blackboard, was slightly better – although I had to login for this one, it was a straightforward process. The site was hosted by North Carolina A & T State University’s Center for Distance Learning (http://fac.ncat.edu/dist/blackboard_demo.html ). Once logged in, the Demo units were clearly identified in each section of the webpage (Courses: Quick View, and My Courses) – much more intuitive.

Actually, I went to three different web sites for Blackboard – the first from the University of Minnesota School of Business Online (http://online.msbcollege.edu/online-support/blackboard/ ), but when I clicked on the clearly indicated Blackboard Demo on the home page, I was directed to a page that stumped me so I abandoned the site. It said:

Globe Education Network (The Network) provides academic support and manages shared resources, including Blackboard Academic SuiteTM, for the benefit of students of Network colleges and universities. The Globe Education Network name appears on the Blackboard e-learning Web site. Classes, however, are delivered by individual member colleges:
Globe University
Minnesota School of Business
Utah Career College
Institute for Production and Recording (IPR)
Duluth Business University

Have an Account? Login Here.
Enter login information here and click the Login button below.
Username:
Password:

Forgot password?

Blackboard Academic Suite™
© 1997-2010 Blackboard Inc. All Rights Reserved. U.S. Patent No. 6,988,138. Additional Patents Pending.
Accessibility information can be found at http://access.blackboard.com.



I did *not* have an account so I tried another web address for a Blackboard demo.

The next was at the University of Missouri (http://mudirect.missouri.edu/getstart/_step1_Demo.shtm ) and it worked similarly to the one at North Carolina A & T State University’s Center for Distance Learning.

Elluminate’s site is better organized (I think). The Demo with word and Icon are clearly indicated at the top of the home page. Better still Elluminate offered the option of scheduling a live online demonstration. Bates and Poole (2003) identify different learning styles, citing Barbe and Swassing (1979): “auditory, visual, and tactile-kinesthetic.” The effectiveness of a technology depends in part on the fit between the technology and recipient / student’s the learning style. For me, auditory linked with visual is essential if I am to learn in a reasonable period of time. Alternatives are painfully slow.

My assessment is that those who provide course management products, or at least my small sample of those mentioned above and one more, have lost the view of the novice and speak ineffectively to someone who wants only to view the demos and *then* commit to the time and resources to learning more about the product.

That is, there should be more emphasis on showing what it can do, with less on the how and demanding too much up front commitment just to get acquainted.

Barbe, W., & Swassing, R. (1979). Teaching through modality strengths: Concepts and practices. Columbus, OH:Zaner-Bloser.

Bates, A.W. & Poole, G. (2003). Effective teaching with technology in higher education: Foundations for success. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Elluminate.Home page http://www.elluminate.com/

Moodle. http://www.elluminate.com/

Distance Education, Part-Time Faculty and Migrant Workers

Moore (2007) provides abundant challenges to conventional beliefs about higher education. With stark assertions such as “… we must grow beyond the old idea that instruction should be the monopoly of people full-time on the college payroll” he also raises concerns that he has too sanguine a view on the higher education enterprise, that higher education governed by administrators would in some way act in the best interests of students. The theory that doing otherwise would self-correct by market mechanisms, espoused by Alan Greenspan, former Federal Reserve Chairman, is directly implicated in the current financial crises (). What seems logical and rational in theory turns out to be simply wrong in practice.

Greenspan, 82, acknowledged under questioning that he had made a “mistake” in believing that banks, operating in their own self-interest, would do what was necessary to protect their shareholders and institutions. (AP, 2008)

Similarly, faculty governance is a critical safeguard to quality control and open investigation – hallmarks of higher education. A university comprised of only part-time or consultant faculty may be responsive to customers in the short-term, but with what threats to quality and mission in the long term? Such a university lacks a countervailing power to administrative governance and we have seen how aberrant this can become in the extreme.

Accreditation standards for academic programs rightly ask about the adequacy of resources for programs undergoing review for accreditation, and consider full-time, terminally credentialed faculty a critical resource.

Absent governance by full time faculty with a long term interest in higher education and in the institution they serve, and accreditation requirements, the economic imperative when using less than full time faculty is the seasonal harvest worker model. Despite Moore’s many insights, on this matter his theory leads to a conclusion that empiric results are unlikely to support.

Moore, M.G. (2007).Web 2.0: Does It Really Matter? The American Journal of Distance Education, 21(4), 177–183.





AP Associated Press. Greenspan admits ‘mistake’ that helped crisis. October 23, 2008. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27335454/

Mistaking Distance Education for Domino’s Pizza

The better single mode educational institutions (the ones which focus exclusively on DE) adhere to a systems model, where the direct services of the institution are supported by planned linkages and adequate resources for the necessary types of support services (Moore and Kearsley, 2005). Of course, not all single mode institutions do this, and external accreditation and oversight will continue to be essential for high quality educational services and learning opportunities. However, this kind of integration and systems view is still beyond the practices of many dual mode institutions. I assume this is due to their reasons for initiating the DE component – were they mainly due to mission, pedagogy or finances? Pullen and Snow (2007) caution “When expanding a course to online delivery, consideration needs to be given to administrative support.” They emphasize that asynchronous DE is more not less costly than f2f, but advocate simulteaching as a cost efficient hybrid. Similarly, Bates and Poole (2003, p. 127) stress the "design, organizational, and administrative issues that result from different mixes of face-to-face and technology based teaching."

Domino’s achieved financial success by vastly expanding the revenues for a very limited fixed preparation and business space. No need to have capacity for seating, no need to have a fleet of vehicles as the drives bring their own automobiles, low rent and utilities costs, and a limited menu. It was a recipe for success, and Domino’s explosive growth shows it captured those advantages.

For administrators under growing pressure to cut costs, increase productivity and demonstrate competitive offerings, DE must seem a ready-made solution. With modest technology investments and relying on existing f2f faculty as the front line face of DE to students, it promised to be the solution to numerous fiscal and enrollment challenges (no more need to expand parking capacity!). Unfortunately, it is too often not accompanied by a reorganization of institutional resources or accountabilities beyond continuing the end of term instructor evaluations by students. Needless to say, it is an unsatisfying experience both for the instructor and for the student when DE is applied like a paste rather than integrated into the learning experiences for DE learners.


As Moore (2007, p. 181) notes: “… it should be a matter of more concern that higher education accommodates so many people in positions of influence who have no training in pedagogical theory and practice …” To be effective in practice, DE cannot be treated as just another flavor of pizza – the easy advantages disappear quickly if there isn’t fundamental integration of DE into the organization and mission of the institution. Even Domino’s has had to respond to its customers complaints.

( ).

Bates, A.W. & Poole, G. (2003). Effective Teaching with Technology in Higher Education: Foundations for Success. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Moore, M.G. (2007).Web 2.0: Does It Really Matter? The American Journal Of Distance Education, 21(4), 177–183.

Moore, M. G. & Kearsley, G. (2005). Distance Education: A Systems View. Belmont, CA: Thomson Wadsworth.

Pullen, J. & Snow, C. Integrating synchronous and asynchronous internet distributed education for maximum effectiveness. Education and Information Technologies, 17(3), pp.137-148.

Why do people still attend community theater productions?

One of the courses in which I'm enrolled has had a conference on the relative merits of asynchronous versus synchronous technologies for distance education (DE). As a slow and error prone typist I start with a bias against the main means of communicating online, though the approach does seem to have potential and appears a permanent fixture in the future of education. This Conference demonstrated enough advantages that I now see that both technologies can be integrated to provide a positive learning experience at a distance.

Some of the readings, however, seemed to be written by advocates rather than investigators of DE and if not directly then by subtext disparaged face-to-face (f2f) in-classroom instruction. (Moore and Kearsley, 2005; Kurz and Sponder, 2010; Heider, et al, 2009). At first I thought that may be true for some subject matter, but not for quantitative reasoning (aka, statistics and analytics). An informal poll supported my belief that students who would prefer to take quantitative courses online are likely a minority. So, if online education is going to continue to grow, it will require some creativity in how quantitative reasoning is taught, what supports exist when it is taught, and what pedagogical innovations can provide the experience of thinking in quantitative concepts without necessarily using symbolic mathematics to do so. Our readings (Bates and Poole, 2003) emphasize the need for more research and evidence to support when to use technology and when to use face-to-face to provide an optimal learning experience.

Blogging offers, in theory, an opportunity for networking among students in course and between students and external persons with domain expertise (McGreal and Elliott, 2008). This short blogging experience will be my experiment to see if that is correct. As someone who has grown up with hard copy books and actually owned a slide rule in high school, the multiple technologies and media can be overwhelming – I want to just stop all of the e-communication and pick up the phone and talk with someone. Carr (2008) asks Is Google Making Us Stupid?, noting the “twitch-speed” at which those who have come of age with internet technologies as the normal.
Which brings me back to the questions of why do people choose to attend community theater when they could rent a video and watch the same performance, supported by more elaborate sets ad production resources, in the comfort of their own homes? The answer to this applies to DE, and particularly to mathematics DE.

What do we know about evidence-based learning theory that would guide us in drawing the correct lessons from support for community theater? The attendees are not universally of my age group, so it is not necessarily a generation issue. The economics actually work against going to the theater, even though it is a bargain for live entertainment. In a time of H1N1 scares and public health awareness, staying home may be safer.
Recently I read in Bates and Poole (2003) about Professor William Harkness’ award-winning Stat 200 initiative. Dr. Harkness’ work was done under a Pew Grant, specifically the Program in Course Redesign, focused on a required statistics course that enrolled more than 2,800 students. The revision was “intended to make the material more relevant to students by shifting the role of the instructor from strictly a lecturer to facilitator of self-directed learning. The redesigned course stresses hands-on practice activities using technology“ (http://www.psu.edu/dept/itscss/news/nlsp03/stat200.html ). His evaluation of the revised mixed-mode course demonstrated that it was less costly per student and based on online quizzes, students are performing progressively better.

I think that while the technological advances have improved support for DE, and extended opportunities for many learners, it is not yet ready to replace the experience of sharing live experiences in real time. Close ... but not yet.

Bates, A. & Poole, G. (2003). Effective Teaching with Technology in Higher Education: Foundations for Success. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Heider, K., Laverick, D. & Bennett, B. (2009). Digital Textbooks: The Next Paradigm Shift in Higher Education?. AACE Journal. 17 (2), pp. 103-112. Chesapeake, VA: AACE. Retrieved October, 1, 2009 from http://www.editlib.org/p/27054

Kurtz, G. & Sponder, B. (2010). SoTL in online education: Strategies and practices for using new media for teaching and learning online. International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning4 (1).

McGreal R. & Elliott, M. (2008). Technologies of Online Learning (E-learning). In T. Anderson. T. (Ed.), Theory and practice of online learning (Second Edition). (pp. 143-165).

Moore, M. G. & Kearsley, G. (2005). Distance Education: A Systems View. Belmont, CA: Thomson Wadsworth.