The End in Mind

Musings about Academic Technology

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Jim Groom is Watching Me

Feb 12, 2010 3:13pm

Jim Groom, aka Rorschach, is watching me. He apparently took umbrage with my ELI presentation in which I–very much tongue-in-cheek–suggested that he and Michael Chasen could live together in harmony, perhaps even sitting down to sing Kumbaya. Jim appears to be concerned that I’m advocating a “middle-of-the-road” approach that validates the...

Institutions and Openness

Jan 21, 2010 8:38am

There has been lots of great discussion at ELI 2010 about openness–what it means, why it’s a value we should embrace, and what it means for institutions. As I’ve contemplated all of this, I was reminded of Whitman poem: “I Hear It Was Charged Against Me” by Walt Whitman I HEAR it was charged...

The CMS and the PLN

Jan 19, 2010 10:28am

It’s a been a long time since I blogged. Between sending my son off on a mission to Brazil, celebrating my 20th anniversary with my sweetheart, working on some offline writing projects, taking some time off for the holidays, getting back into the swing of things with the New Year...

Tinkering, Playing, and Learning

Nov 6, 2009 1:07pm

John Seely Brown is visited the BYU Campus today and gave a compelling talk about Homo sapiens, Homo faber, and Homo ludens. Essentially, he argues that the formal education focuses almost exclusively on the Homo sapiens notion of “man as knowledge,” attempting to fill students with information and facts. This is...

Why Wave Won’t Replace the CMS

Oct 15, 2009 6:17am

Last week, Jeff Young added to the Wave hype with his frequently Tweeted and Re-Tweeted post “Could Google Wave Replace Course-Management Systems?” From what I’ve seen of Wave so far (I got my invite this week), I’d have to say, “No chance.” I have three reasons for making this conclusion: 1....

Gaming, Social Learning & Authenticity

Sep 29, 2009 2:17pm

James Paul Gee argues that gaming, particularly role-playing gaming, is providing young people with precisely the skills they need to be effective and productive in our new mediated culture and highly networked workplaces. Gee’s positive view on the impact of gaming confirms what I’ve concluded about the video game “races”...

WordPress iPhone App

Sep 27, 2009 1:15pm

Just discovered the free WordPress iPhone app. Great way to write short posts on the go. This post is mostly to see how it works … and to note that technology never ceases to amaze me. Why is it that with such amazing technological affordances available to us we haven’t...

Assessment as a Social Activity

Sep 17, 2009 1:26pm

I’ve been following the Washington State Harvesting Gradebook project for sometime and have been impressed with the intellectual rigor behind the project. That is clearly evidenced in this video overview of the project: The comments at the end of the video are particularly significant. The narrator concludes: At bottom, our...

To Act or To Be Acted Upon

Sep 16, 2009 9:42am

One of my favorite scriptural passages reminds us that we all have a fundamental choice to make in life–to act or to be acted upon. Certainly there are many things in life that are beyond our control. But we have the choice–every day, every hour, every moment. We can choose...

Outsourcing Our Memory to Google

Aug 8, 2009 4:47pm

Robert Kelly, author of How to Be a Star at Work, made the following observation about the percentage of knowledge the average employee stores in their own mind, versus the amount they retrieve from external sources as the need arises: “What percent of the knowledge you need to do your job...