Ran into Alan Bernstein, who hired me for my first job, this morning. Alan has always been both very protective and supportive of his employees. I don’t think I’d be where I am today without him. Kind of freaky to think I’ve been working for for 15 years. First it was in a library, an…
This piqued my interest because well… I work for public higher education running an online class system. There are twin subtle pressures to both compete and remain aloof depending on people’s assumptions about money and quality. I personally just hope we do whatever is necessary to provide the highest quality service for students. This was…
I ought to give this teeshirt to Amy as just this week she suggested this very thing to solve a personnel problem for the office. Maybe she has a birthday coming up?
My favorite quotes: “[Blackboard is] a one-stop shop where students can come and get absolutely any access to me, any access to the teaching assistants.” — Philip Wirtz “[Open source] classroom management systems [like Sakai and Moodle] are becoming increasingly popular because they allow schools to adapt the software to meet their needs.” “Even though…
Michelle remarked my blog posts over the years have become technical. I wanted to say “too technical”, but I don’t think she actually wrote that. Instead of writing about the personal aspects of my work I only write about the mechanics. Over the years I’ve read quite a bit about the trouble people get into…
Today is Ada Lovelace Day to celebrate women in technology and science. I’ve read women need role models more than men. If true, then movements like this to promote those who are doing great work in fields like technology are good. First a little about Ada. Ada [Lovelace[ called herself  “an Analyst (& Metaphysician),” and the…
In ten years (by 2020), the goal of the Obama administration is to have 60% of the American population hold at least a 2-year post-secondary degree and graduate college-ready high school students. I’m hoping the first, stated as “We will raise the proportion of college graduates from where it now stands [39%] so that 60% of…
Seth Godin’s post, Try Different, assumes we should try as hard as we can. If you ever reach the point you are trying as hard as you can, then you probably have passed the point where you should try another approach. Once the effort has exceeded the value of the work, something is wrong. This is…
Some quotes from the Overcoming Bias blog from the book Hard Facts. (I’ve cleaned up some spelling errors.) Merit pay for teachers is an idea that is almost 100 years old and has been subject to much research. In one study conducted in 1918, “48 percent of U.S. school districts sampled used compensation systems that…