So did y’all know that Jing has a monthly bandwidth limit of 2GB? Yeah, neither did I. So it turns out that the Jing walkthrough I’ve been passing around maxed out a bit ago. So I went through the labor intensive process of using Slideshare to simulate a screencast of Waterfeed. The upside is there Continue reading

Vine is one of the addictions my daughter and I currently share. Somewhat predictably, the six second format and lack of  an editing function acts as generative constraints that brings out the creativity in people, and it’s just fascinating to see what people come up with. If you’re looking for an example of how to Continue reading

So I admit that I was initially confused by what the President could do *now* about his education plan. With the current Congress, nothing is getting passed. There are some elements in the plan which can be done through pure executive power, but most of it requires legislation. So why now? How does this announcement Continue reading

I love working on ideas and projects that no one else seems to be doing, but the best moments in my professional career have been when I’ve discovered that what I’m doing is not so original at all. Fresh off of an interview with Jim Groom, I’m reminded of that fateful moment in 2007 where Continue reading

I’m working on Waterfeed, one of the activities of the Spring 2014 experiment we’ll be running, where we run a cMOOC/ds106 experience over multiple classes as an integrative layer. And something happened this morning when I was looking at the feed that seemed like a good opportunity to talk about how errors in a network Continue reading

People who read this blog know I’ve been talking about Water106 for a while and about the possibility of applying a ds106 model to an issues-based course for even longer. For those that haven’t been following the idea as it has been developed, however, I’ve written up a whitepaper, suitable for sharing with faculty or Continue reading

Having students summarize readings for someone else is one of the great teaching techniques. We see it in Peer Instruction, we see it in the effects of team-based learning, we see it in the beneficial effects of tutoring on a tutor’s understanding. At the same time, such activities are often inauthentic. WaterFeed is a part Continue reading

Yesterday I put together a spreadsheet and looked at two different approaches to income-based repayment — a current federal program (Pay-as-You-Earn) and Oregon’s proposed Pay it Forward. It did not end well for Pay-it-Forward, although I’m still waiting for someone more familiar with modeling these policies to pick up the torch and check/fix my models. Continue reading

(With apologies to Jerry Garcia). OK, so here’s the thing. I just want someone to model what the Pay it Forward, Pay it Back plan looks like in a variety of cases compared to actual existing alternatives. That would seem an easy thing, something that legislatures and policy houses would do before taking positions on Continue reading

I’ve just finished reading Susan Cain’s Quiet, which is a must-read for anyone in instructional design. (And by must-read I don’t mean you should read it because you will like it, but that you should read it because to not read it would be negligent: this book will open your eyes to an educational system Continue reading