Student Loans - Paid off!

Last week I paid off the remainder of my Federal PLUS Loan for daughter number two. We had that average $25,000 in loans when she graduated five years ago. Done! I'm happy to that she and I are both out of debt (at least for the moment). I would love to chronicle how paying for her four years at Pratt Institute went down, but every tuition bill was confusing and every financial aid letter was confusing - and it was just generally... confusing. So how much did those four years cost? A bunch - but I don't have a total. Nevertheless we got through it with her work study grants, some scholarship awards, my part-time work teaching online in addition to my full-time librarian job, some help from my dad...and some federal loans. I'm glad to have that financial episode concluded!

I know adding info to posts after the fact is not a great idea, but I saw this and wanted to tack it on here...
NASFAA National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators put out their consumer testing of financial aid award letters report. No clear winners http://www.nasfaa.org/EntrancePDF.aspx?id=14078

A librarian lurking in a MOOC

I'm paying attention to the discussion fora on Duke's English Composition I course taught by Denise Comer and offered through Coursera. I'm looking for places that an embedded librarian might intervene. Why? I'm interested in the role that information literacy plays in MOOCs in general. More specifically I'm on board as staff librarian with writingcommons.org (http://writingcommons.org)which is being used as one of the resources for the Duke course. What other information could writingcommons.org include in order to help students taking MOOCs? Here's a few things that I've answered:

How do I copyright my work? This was not the "how do I cite work and avoid plagiarizing" - but "how do I copyright works of fiction that I myself have written?" I explained how it's done in the U.S, but I'm not certain this student was a U.S. citizen.

There was a question about how to search for open access resources. Another student helped out with that and I chimed in as well with some ideas.

How do I find recent research on child development? I explained how to find some research using open access services - and made some suggestions about finding recent articles if you are affiliated or near a library.

How can I find glossaries for various academic disciplines - specifically social work? (In the case the student is a non-native English speaker.) I listed some sites and explained how I identified them.

What about political correctness and academic writing? I turned up an interesting web site from University of Leicester and asked the students to take a look to see what they thought about it.

I'll try to keep track of whatever else gets "librarian" answer from me.

I've let the Duke librarians know that I'm in there being nosy. Any other librarians embedded in their MOOCs and answering questions wearing their librarian hat?

Spotify Pandora

Every once in a while I try Spotify - but there's something disappointing about the experience for me. The screen is cluttered with too much extraneous information - and once again today, Spotify was busy advertising artists not currently of any interest to me. Grrr. It really doesn't have a clue what I listen to? So I switched over to Pandora and signed in - and it had already created a fado radio station for me with Mariza as the first artist - the very person I was just listening to on Spotify. Second artist up - Amalia Rodrigues. Good listening!

Education for other people's children

When considering interesting/novel/new forms of education - online learning, MOOCs, etc..... Steve Gilbert likes to ask if what we are proposing is only "good enough for other people's children?" Are we recommending modes of education that we'd want for our own children? Or is what we're recomming only a "good enough" option for students who can't manage to participate in that type education we have traditionally thought of as "best? I'm pretty sure that Steve is thinking of traditional college-age students who may be well-served by the traditional, residential, liberal arts undergraduate education. There's an implication that this is the standard and that there's only one "best." But I think the time to consider that environment the "best" or the only way to get a "real" education has been over for a while. There are too many other options that have been used successfully by many students. (Also, not all students attending the traditional bricks and mortar schools get great grades or go on to be high achievers.) What about the children of those running for profits or online universities like UMUC or consortia like the Western Governors University? Are those leaders encouraging their children to attend an Ivy League university or a traditional liberal arts residental college? I'm not sure that matters one way or the other. While children of the leaders of Western Governors University might select a traditional route, other students select WGU - and get what they need. Straighterline may be a cheap, quick way to get some credits and not provide the full undergraduate experience, but cheap, quick credits can be just what some people need. Those students are someone's children, but it's possible that they are already adults in their own right. At UMUC this term I have quite a few retired and soon-to-be retired military (both female and male), a man who's currently in the State Department, another man who was in the Bush administration in various capacities, some single parents, some who are mid-career and need that advanced degree to switch gears or to move ahead. There are a few traditional age students who like the flexibility of online learning, but they are outnumbered by the adults. These UMUC students are not living the unencumbered lives that some of us were lucky to have as undergraduates. I think perhaps we need to ask this question: How can we deliver education to students who are not just like our children?

Returning vets who can't get jobs

Jon Stewart interviewed vets who can't get jobs due to the disconnect between military training and experience in the field and certification. http://goo.gl/TplRg There isn't some institution already getting going on this and offering prior learning assessment and setting up a learning plan to get these people jobs ASAP? I'm checking out the Hillsborough Community College (Tampa FL) web pages devoted to veterans and notice this "Veteran students must be degree seeking; that is, planning to graduate with an Associate in Arts (AA), Associate in Science (AS) or Associate in Applied Science (AAS) degree, Selected College Credit Certificates (CCC) or Post-Secondary Adult Vocational (PSAV). Note: Educator Preparatory Institute no longer qualifies." (https://www.hccfl.edu/veterans-services/general-guidelines.aspx ) I wonder if HCC has any way to evaluate what a vet already knows to put them on a fast track to certification in some area such as EMT. Do schools offer such a service?

sMOOChers

The TLTGroup of sMOOChers met online last Friday. The group's doing the Current/Future State of Higher Education MOOC(#cfhe12) together. Most of the group had just watched Siva Vaidhyanathan's presentation " Beyond MOOC Hyperbole: Why We Should Support MOOC Experimentation ... Critically and Carefully" CFHE12 is using GoToMeeting and we agreed that we don't like it. You can't see a list of participants and you can't chat with other participants while you are watching. You can send questions to the moderator, but otherwise there is no interaction. Do I see that organizers have a choice about allowing everyone to use the chat window?? I'm not sure why that function didn't seem to be available. See "chat with other attendees" http://support.citrixonline.com/en_US/gotomeeting/all_files/GTM090009) Another aggravtion with GoToMeeting: Watching an archived copy of the first presentation by Jeff Selingo required putting in your name and email address again and downloading a codec (in my case) and THEN watching. Stephen Downes put up a copy of the Selingo's presentation at blip.tv - no problems there! Having the right tool at the right time makes a difference.

Coincidentally, I was looking through Peeragogy: A Peer-Learning Handbook (http://peeragogy.org) recently and like the way they suggest thinking about tools for self-learners in terms of function. Learners need tools to collect (search/visualize), relate (consulting others), create (and co-create), and distribute/disseminate information. (http://peeragogy.org/resources/technologies/ ) We sure could add some criteria to a synchronous tool. I would like something more like Bb Collaborate or Adobe Connect.

One of the SMOOCHERS mentioned etiquette - or lack of it - in the discussion forums. I haven't noticed anything even slightly off to me, so I'm trying to figure out what might have seemed troubling. I'm wondering if this was a reaction to some informality(?) (Some participants in CFHE12 know each other, so there's that.) Want to see really bad behavior? There was plenty in the Coursera course I took. The teaching assistants for that course did not use a heavy hand, but they did remove some postings. We can remind participants to be polite, but what should we do when some aren't? Perhaps we should warn MOOC newbies about the potential for a lack of decorum in discussion forums Perhaps we should suggest that newbies warm up by spending a few hours reading comments on slashdot and reddit and get innured to flip comments. Perhaps we should be trained in strategies for dealing with rude postings when we are not in charge. (Some suggestions for dealing with difficult students in the online classroom at http://deoracle.org/online-pedagogy/teaching-strategies/managing-difficult-students-in-the-online-classroom.html )

Last Friday was a day of complete confusion for me about what time I was supposed to be where - both in physical space and online space. I need an administrative assistant! I finally made it online for that first TLT Group sMOOCHers discussion on CFHE12. Talk about confusion in general! I've been using the wrong hastag for sMOOCHers. It should be #tltgSMOOCHERS . I would have sworn that I'd been reading all my TLT email, but I guess not.

Speaking of technology: I do not yet have a mobile device with a data plan/hotspot. I experimented with ways to get onto wifi as if I were getting out of work at 2pm and getting into a 2pm online meeting ASAP. Not much luck with a rapid launch with my current batch of devices from my work location! Maybe it's time to pay Verizon more money? (sigh).

What money can buy: Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy For Girls

I watched the tv show about the first graduating class of the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls on OWN network last night. Oprah is aiming to create a "new generation of dynamic women leaders." I poked around their web site this morning. The OWLAG says this about ICT: "We continually monitor ICT developments in education - seeking new ways of using connectivism as a learning theory and exploring the genefits of networked learning." There is an Arts and Culture Department that "provides after-school co-curriculum programme which focuses on creativity, opportunity and development." The OWLAG includes design technology in the curriculum with lessons that are mostly project-driven and assessed on the basis of teamwork as well as other results. The school stresses community service. There is an office of university guidance and a wellness team. The school offers the Internantional Baccalaureate degree for the middle years. The school teaches English, IsiZulu, SeSotho and Akrikaans. English is the "bridging language." The other three languages help ensure that these students will be "firmly grounded by their culture and South African heritage." The description of the library includes this: "Books are the most important part of the Library. Despite our very impressive collection of DVDs, movie recordings and subscription databases, the printed word in its traditional format is where research and reading skills begin." (That sounds almost quaint to me - but I appreciate the sentiment.) Nice! What if all kids had a personal advisor and a wellness coach and a life orientation curriculum? I know that Oprah has plenty of money to lavish on tis particular school and gets to pick the best blueberries (see http://www.jamievollmer.com/blueberries.html ), but what if we had the will to do more for all of our children?