Category Archives: Higher Education

Is it wrong to buy publications from grad students and pass them off as your own?

Posted on January 6, 2010 by Katrin Becker

Apparently it is in China – if you get caught. Chinese academia ghost-writing ‘widespread’ This BBC article claims that “More than $100m (£63m) changes hands in China every year for ghost-written academic papers, according to research by a Chinese university.” … Continue reading →

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“Venality, Pretension, Irresponsibility and Risible Claims”: That sounds just like the UofC

Posted on October 20, 2009 by Katrin Becker

Stanley Fish is really hit and miss for me: sometimes I agree with him, and other times really, really not. This is one of those times I agree: Stanley Fish: Academics Under Siege By By Stanley Fish Published: October 19, … Continue reading →

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Teaching Introductory Programming: We’re Doing It Wrong (still)

Posted on October 3, 2009 by Katrin Becker

I just read Mark Guzdial’s excellent post on some of what’s wrong with how we teach introductory programming courses. Question Everything: How We Teach Intro CS is Wrong The notion that we should be modeling expert behaviour when teaching programming is … Continue reading →

Posted in Academia, Computer Science, Higher Education, Programming, Teaching & Learning | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

On Dissertations and Theses

Posted on September 26, 2009 by Katrin Becker

When I was writing my thesis I looked for examples of dissertations to get some ideas about how to formulate my own – you know general style, chapter organization, etc. It was suggested that I go to my school’s library … Continue reading →

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Do Teachers Need Education Degrees?

Posted on August 17, 2009 by Katrin Becker

Saw this on the New York Times (Opinion) today: http://roomfordebate.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/08/16/education-degrees-and-teachers-pay/?8ty&emc=ty Do Teachers Need Education Degrees? By The Editors Robert Stolarik for The New York Times In a Room for Debate forum in June on the value of liberal arts master’s … Continue reading →

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Is Computer Science Dead?

Posted on August 14, 2009 by Katrin Becker

Just heard on Mark Guzdial’s blog that “Georgia Tech’s College of Computing is now considering a proposal to remove Smalltalk from the required curriculum in favor of C++.” This is another nail in the coffin of CS. There is great … Continue reading →

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Be professional enough to do a decent literature review…

Posted on June 11, 2009 by Katrin Becker

SHEESH! I get a lot of papers to review in Game Studies; Serious Games; Educational Games., etc. I used to learn a lot from reading these papers. Not anymore. Not only is much of what I read “old news” (i.e. … Continue reading →

Posted in Academia, conferences, Educational Technology, Games, Higher Education, Interdisciplinarity, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Look out SMART Technologies – the writing may be on the wall, and it isn’t yours.

Posted on March 30, 2009 by Katrin Becker

In Today’s MIT Tech Review: A Better, Cheaper Multitouch Interface A new pressure-sensitive pad could improve large and small touch screens. I’ve thought for some time that the SMART Technologies’ White Board which is marketed so vigorously to Alberta schools … Continue reading →

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