Ways to use Wikipedia in class

One thing leads to another - and to this article with detailed information on assigning students to write articles for Wikipedia for a Latin American literature course: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Jbmurray/Madness. This came from a Faculty Focus article on effective use of Wikipedia in the classroom.

Stanford's bookless library

This article from Mercury News is from a few days ago. I noticed it on the Kept-Up Academic Librarian blog. I keep thinking about it. Stanford is going to go bookless for their Physics and Engineering libraries and put in a smaller electronic library that covers physics, computer science, and engineering. This doesn't seem to do with some idea to throw away all the books. Instead Stanford is going to store books in order to save space and has selected disciplines where electronic access makes sense. Maybe there are other disciplines where this approach makes sense as well - or maybe it'll make sense in a few more years. I had an experience the other day with a professor who wanted to review a batch of research methods textbooks. I don't see that these are available online... at least not yet. I remember when periodical indexes were moving online. We kept the print versions around until it was clear that even if the Internet went down, no one was willing to go back to the tedium of looking through the indexes by hand. I think it was smart of our administrators to let us wait until our patrons caught up.

Krieger, L. (2010, May 19). Stanford University prepares for 'bookless library.' San Jose Mercury News. MercuryNews.com. Retrieved May 22, 2010, from http://www.mercurynews.com/education/ci_15114502?source=rss&nclick_check=1

(Geez, does anyone know an easy way to get a bibliographic citation out of Zotero and into your blog post?)

Charter School Scandals - a blog

Downes cites Sharon Higgens' Charter School Scandals blog http://charterschoolscandals.blogspot.com/. Are charter schools a panacea? Good old Wikipedia entry Information on charter schools from the NEA http://www.nea.org/home/16332.htm. A link to US Charter Schools web site. A more rah-rah version from the Center for Education Reform http://www.edreform.com/Issues/Charter_Connection/

Marc Bosquet

Marc Bosquet's work goes along nicely with all the other things I'm reading about our troubled higher educational system. See his "How the University Works: Higher Education and the Low-Wage Nation"

College, Inc - for-profit colleges

See the PBS Frontline report on for-profit colleges, College, Inc. (May, 2010). There seems to be nothing inherently wrong with for-profits, but there are issues: prospective students are pressured to enroll by admissions counselors who are paid by enrollments. There are problems with student assumption of debt for expensive degrees are misrepresented and that do not result in jobs. Where does the money for those student loans come from? Financial aid sponsored by the federal government. See comments on the PBS Frontline website listed above - There are defenders and detractors both.

Seth Godin's lizard brain video

Merlin Mann of 43 Folders interviewed Seth Godin about his book Linchpin - and mentioned a presentation that Seth Godin had done - See link above. Godin says don't let your lizard brain stop you: You must ship. Just get the work shipped. How did I get to this from what I've been reading, etc? I went to another interview with Seth Godin with Steve Hargadon. See http://tr.im/futureofed - May 5, 2010 event.

Go to college? Drop out? Or Not Go At All?

Definitely a theme about the value (and cost) of higher education going on! Caterina Fake posted "Want to be an entrepreneuer? Drop out of college" Chris Cameron at ReadWriteStart points out in The role of education in entrepreneurship that the comments are a valuable addition to the post. Erica Douglass had posted on the same topic "Do young entrepreneurs need to go to college?" Comments there too. My major take-aways: There's more than one way to live your life - and going to college isn't such a bad idea.