Channel 6: Unemployment Benefits Extended?
Channel 6 called and interviewed me about the proposal in the Senate to extend unemployment benefits by “15 days”. See my Econproph.com post for my comments. Should be on 6:00 news tonight.
Jim Community Service, TV film interview, WLNS
Channel 6 called and interviewed me about the proposal in the Senate to extend unemployment benefits by “15 days”. See my Econproph.com post for my comments. Should be on 6:00 news tonight.
Jim College Service/Committees CWAC
I completed (finally) the development of a website for the LCC College-Wide Assessment Committee. It’s at: http://lcccwac.wordpress.com/
We’re looking at bringing the hosting of the site in-house.
Jim College Service/Committees, Presentations CTE/LCC Prof Dev
I presented a peek at my Principles of Econ online courses at the CTE workshop “Online Course Demos” on Wednesday, Feb. 17, 2010, along with Jean Lynch-Brandon. The session was well attended with approx. 25 other faculty and administrators in attendance.
Jim College Service/Committees
Lansing Community College is part of AQIP, the Academic Quality Improvement Process. AQIP is an alternative process for accreditation through the Higher Learning Commission. The traditional approach involves an intensive, on-site review and comparison to prescriptive criteria by reviewers every 7-10 years. AQIP calls for creating continuous quality improvement processes and reviewing progress/status with other AQIP schools each year.
Each AQIP school has a Strategy team that leads the process. I am pleased and excited that the Provost of LCC, Stephanie Shanblatt, has asked me to participate on the LCC team. It should be a lot of work, but fun for me also. In some ways, it’s like going back to my previous career as a strategic planning and technology systems consultant.
Jim College Service/Committees
LCC is going to hire a replacement for Bruce McCrea in Economics. Bruce retired and can’t really be replaced, but we’ll try. I am on the search committee.
Jim College Service/Committees, Presentations, Professional Development
I presented on “Blogs: A Professor’s Best Friend” to LCC faculty as part of LCC’s Professional Development Days. A copy of the powerpoint is here. I have an .mp3 file of the audio here. Both are unedited. I’m planning to edit and combine them into a flash presentation that I’ll post to my new blog at eproph.wordpress.com.
The description was:
Blogs are a professor’s best friend. Free and easy to use, blogs can save you time while you keep course materials current, distribute your workload, and freshen-up your teaching portfolio or vitae. Come to this session to learn how to use and create your own blogs!
Jim College Service/Committees, Presentations, Professional Development
I presented on “Beyond Angel: The Future of LMS’s” to LCC faculty as part of LCC’s Professional Development Days. A copy of the powerpoint is here. I have an .mp3 file of the audio here. Both are unedited. I’m planning to edit and combine them into a flash presentation that I’ll post to my new blog at eproph.wordpress.com.
The description was:
Web 2.0 technologies and open source software are changing the world of learning management systems. Schools are moving beyond ANGEL/Blackboard and using Moodle, Sakai, Blogs, Wiki’s, Second Life and more. Learn about what’s possible today and discuss what tomorrow might bring.
Did an interview with WLNS Channel 6 today. The December & full year 2009 car sales numbers came out. Not really a surprise that 2009 was uuuu-ggglly, but there are some bright spots. GM’s Oct-Nov-Dec trend for the 4 brands it’s keeping are positive. And Ford rocks. I think it looks cautiously optimistic for the state for this year, barring no more problems in the national economy (a tall order). Fun part of this interview was we did via telephone and they broadcast it as voice-over some file footage of me.
Jim Community Service, TV WLNS
Did an interview with WLNS Channel 6 reporter Jessica Maki today. The November employment report came out with surprisingly improved news. Of course, it’s still bad news that employment is shrinking, but losing only 11,000 is a heck of a lot better than last month’s -111,000.
An excerpt from Jeffrey Tucker nails it. To teach at a college or university is to engage in an ancient and very worthwhile endeavor: the teaching of others. To do so, one must be opposed to the concept of “intellectual property”.:
…how do you at once enforce intellectual property and uphold the ideal of a university, which is, after all, about teaching and spreading ideas to others?
There are two possible ways out of this problem in a digital age: open source or IP. The open-source model has been adopted by MIT, on the one hand, which has made its entire curriculum open source and freely available online. This is a fairly straightforward approach, which finally gets down to the reality that what MIT is charging for is not so much the education but the degree itself. Clarity at last.
Another approach is the one taken by Harvard and, most explicitly, by the University of Texas, which has suggested that professors make the following contract with students:
My lectures are protected by state common law and federal copyright law. They are my own original expression and I record them at the same time that I deliver them in order to secure protection. Whereas you are authorized to take notes in class thereby creating a derivative work from my lecture, the authorization extends only to making one set of notes for your own personal use and no other use. You are not authorized to record my lectures, to provide your notes to anyone else or to make any commercial use of them without express prior permission from me.
You can make “no other use” of what you learn? Really? That sort of smashes the whole point of education, doesn't it?
The goal of the university is to spread knowledge, not to grant a one-time use for what you learn in the classroom. The aim of an individual student is to gain knowledge that is used in every possible way for a lifetime — and to pass the ideas on to others.
via If You Believe in IP, How Do You Teach Others? – Jeffrey A. Tucker – Mises Institute.