Last night, Coursera announced their most recent round of new partner universities, of which UNC-CH is one. Back in November, the Provost issued a Call for Proposals for MOOCs, and I submitted two. About a week & a half ago, I was informed that one of my proposals — for a course on metadata, modeled on the School’s course INLS 720 — was accepted as one of the first round.. Read More
I’m teaching my Digital Libraries course this semester. I’ve taught this course at least once a year for the past 8 years. But this time around I’m doing something different: I’m deliberately trying to use methods from team-based learning. Now, my DLs course has always had something of a TBL spin to it. The major assignment for the course is for the students to build a prototype digital library. I.. Read More
I’ve had Radio Free Albemuth sitting on my nightstand for a while now. I went to pick it up to read it recently, when I had the harebrained idea that I should instead work my way up to it, by reading everything that Philip K. Dick wrote in chronological order. Now, I’ve read a pretty fair bit of PKD’s work already, and not in any kind of sensible order. But.. Read More
I’m writing this post at Yvonne’s urging, as she suggested that this might be of broader interest than just me feeling pleased with myself and bragging to her. What monumental achievement have I achieved? Only this: I’ve just made my grading easier, by figuring out how to parse WordPress URLs. Oh BTW, by way of background: I use WordPress as my courseware platform, almost exclusively. About the only thing I.. Read More
Bear with me for a moment while I’m insufferable. Because… [scribd id=90443873 key=key-dsje1ha70at7013bs22 mode=list] Highest Distinction, baby! Hellz yeah! So ok, seriously now. These are the levels of certificates for CS101, as articulated in the announcement email: Certificate of Completion: you completed the class, and demonstrated that by either getting at least one question correct on the final exam, or solving at least 3 questions correctly on Homework 6. Certificate.. Read More
Please spread this post far and wide (I ask of the 4 people who are reading this)… I’d like to get feedback on this from as many corners as possible. I’m one of the two faculty instructors for INLS 501, the Reference course in the School of Information and Library Science. That’s not to say that only the two of us ever teach the course; the School has several other.. Read More
It’s been several weeks since I posted anything about my Udacity CS101 course… mostly because over the past several weeks I’ve been spending every evening working on the course and not blogging about it. But now I’ve completed all 7 units, and the final exam, the grading robots are hard at work, and I’m waiting on my exam grade. While I haven’t been blogging about CS101, I have been making.. Read More
I wrote my last post when I was about a third of the way through Unit 1 in CS101, and before the homework for Unit 1 was posted (which happened last Thursday morning). Now that I’ve finished Unit 1, both content and homework, I thought it was a good time to take stock & post again. First, I have an issue. The instructor, David Evans, made his videos using some.. Read More
I’m really fascinated by the (fairly) recent boom in new models of online education: Khan Academy, MITx, Udacity, etc. And in fact I registered for, and have started Udacity’s CS 101, Building a Search Engine. Actually I already know how to build a simple search engine, though I’m sure I’ll learn more. Really I’m registered to see how they manage a course on that scale, how these models can impact.. Read More
I have ripped my first book: In The Age Of The Smart Machine: The Future Of Work And Power, by Shoshana Zuboff. Why In The Age Of The Smart Machine, in particular? Well, first of all, it’s not really my book, or at least I didn’t buy it: it was bought by Robin Peek, my colleague, mentor, and friend from Simmons College (and my ripped version retains her name written.. Read More