CBC News – Technology & Science – CRTC approves usage-based internet billing.
And in Ottawa, it’s still 1978….
I wouldn’t mind so much, I think if not for the problem that I can’t, say, turn off the 50% of every page I download that contains nothing but ads.
If I’m paying by-the-byte, then I want to be able to choose which bytes those are.
But not the ways it intends.
I came across this post on FB the other day:
The New Television: How the iPad Changes Everything by Kevin Wheeler on April 27, 2010
In it he talks about how “The iPad is just as revolutionary a device. In its simplicity and minimalism it morphs a computer into an appliance. Anyone can understand and use it. It requires almost no instruction. Everyone in my family has picked it up after being attracted to its sleek simplicity and started to play with it. Within minutes they were watching movies or doing something with no instruction from me. On the other hand, no one has even touched my laptop – ever!”
Great. I’m sure he’s telling the truth. Now, I’ve have been known to buy a new gadget the day it comes out if I think it has some potential. The only one so far that hasn’t disappointed me are my Nintendo DS’s. I now have 5. Starting with the original, the Lite, the DSi, and now also the XL. Know why I like them so much? They’re honest. They don’t pretend to be anything more than they are, AND their focus is on what they know to be their bread and butter – gaming.
My problem with the direction that Apple is going is that they pretend to be more than they are. Sure, their ads are great. I like them too (and btw, Microsoft, your “I’m a PC” ads TOTALLY missed the point).
The biggest problem with Apple’s devices is that they are CONSUMER only devices. To put it bluntly, they are for tool USERS, not for tool MAKERS. Sure, the iPAD is pretty – sexy even. But it is no more an active device than a TV, and LESS interactive than my DS (which has two cameras).
As much of the tech world marches toward more and more choice and customizability, both Apple & Microsoft want us to have less. The “amazing” ipad has no camera, no possibility for memory expansion, no USB ports, no flash, and you can’t really see the screen when you’re outside. But hey, it costs more than my netbook so it MUST be better, right?
Apple devices are expensive, pretty, somewhat fragile and designed for passive acceptance of whatever it is that Apple thinks we should want. And Apple thinks we want to let Apple control ALL apps (flash might allow people to create their own content, and Apple CERTAINLY doesn’t want that). In fact, they are even happy to remove apps that they used to support. Do people really think Apple has superior insight? What really amazes me is how many otherwise intelligent, tech-savvy people are actually willing to swallow all this top down control.
It really is all about control. Apple wants total control over everything anyone does with their devices. How arrogant is that? While some of us try to democratize technology to allow everyone to be a producer, Apple tightens its grip. Apple wants to make sure that the ranks of the B Ark continue to grow.
As Daw Aung San Suu Kyi says,
“It is not power that corrupts but fear. Fear of losing power corrupts those who wield it and fear of the scourge of power corrupts those who are subject to it.”
Steve is afraid. I think many of his minions are too. If the ipad is a revolutionary device, it is more like Mao’s Cultural Revolution than the French one.
Yesterday was the 40th ‘celebration’ of Earth Day. There were all kinds of self-affirming / damning (depending on which side you’re on) blog posts, articles, events, and news items.
So today I ask, now what? Do most people go back to whatever they were doing the day before? How aware are people REALLY of the impact they are having on the planet?
They buy their bottled water thinking they are doing something better for both themselves (because, of course anything that we pay for must be better than something that is nearly free) and for the environment (the bottles get recycled, right? … RIGHT?)
They believe that anything labeled “GREEN” is better than anything not so marketed. Not so.
So, how do we address the real issue? The fact is that most people want their lives to be easy – they don’t want to have to think about much of anything. For example, how do we get people to realize that tap water is WAY better for the environment (and you) MOST OF THE TIME, so stop buying those sexy-looking disposable bottles!!!! Buy a re-usable bottle, and bring water from home.
How do we convince people that their food should be costing way more than it is, if we want to ensure that crops can be raised without the need for genetic modification, and so that animals can be raised with respect? Do you even think about the life of the chicken that produced the eggs you eat, or the egg white that helped grow the vaccines you get? Or of the calf produced by the cow that gave you the milk you are drinking or the cheese you are eating?
How do we fight the drug and agri-business lobbies?
I think education is the only answer, but how do we make it happen?
What do YOU do to reduce your impact on the planet? Have you checked to make sure that the things you are doing actually make things BETTER? Do you think about what went into making that PRIUS you drive? Did you look at the impact of what happens to the car you left behind?
…Part Seven in the series on “Becoming a University” (this is the last in this series, at least, for now).
As Mount Royal University makes the transition from a college to a university……
I have seen very little indication that this even a consideration in the faculties and hiring committees I have dealt with (what is said and what is being done are not the same here). Hiring brand new PhDs is fine, but you ALSO need people with many years of experience in a true academic environment – one where people are expected to teach AND do research. You need people with established research agendas and sound publication records who are ready to help others learn how to do the same. Although there is a great deal of community spirit at MRU, when it comes to hiring, the reality in the units is that they tend to hire people who are like themselves. They really need to be hiring people who can help make the cultural transition to a university a reality.
…Part Six in the series on “Becoming a University”
As Mount Royal University makes the transition from a college to a university……
There is far more to becoming a university than a name change and the ability to offer degrees. Working only while at work, which consists primarily of teaching courses and dealing with students along with the occasional faculty meeting makes one a teacher, but not a professor. Forgive me if this sounds harsh, but the majority of the faculty I have met at MRU are of this sort – and the majority of the department chairs I have met behave as though faculty will be on campus from 9-5, M-F, and OFF the rest of the time. Many (although by no means all) are good, caring teachers but most are NOT professors. MRU can not become a university unless it has enough people who really are academics. Dedicated academics are academics 24/7 – it is who they ARE, not what they DO. Academics do not punch a clock.
You can’t become a university if you don’t have people who really are professors, and calling oneself a professor doesn’t make it so.
Note: I make a distinction between being a “teacher” and being a “professor”. I am not trying to denigrate real teachers (i.e. those who are trained as teachers and have made that their profession). I have tremendous respect for real teachers, if they’re dedicated to their profession. What I don’t have a lot of respect for is faculty in Higher Ed who treat their positions as a job and do little more than teach their classes, manage their students, and put in some committee time. Most of these people have no real training in teaching and should have NO right to call themselves professors. Come to think of it, they should have no right to call themselves teachers either. They’re little more than college employees.
…Part Five in the series on “Becoming a University”
As Mount Royal University makes the transition from a college to a university……
I have lost track of how many times I have heard MRU faculty use this excuse to explain why they don’t demand more of their students, or why they themselves don’t do more innovative things in their classrooms. Aside from short-changing their own students, such self-deprecating attitudes will help to cement MRU‘s position as a local institution. Many faculty at MRU have an inferiority complex that is quite self-defeating.
In one position I applied for, the department chair actually thanked me for “considering their little school” when I was turned down. The person who was hired instead lasted barely a year.
I have taught at both the UofC and MRU and there are some very bright and promising students at both. The biggest difference is NOT in the quality of the school or its students; it is attitude.
The UofC largely ignores the lower 1/2 of every class, whereas MRU actually tries to help them. That’s one of the things that sets MRU apart – they care about all the students. Thus, since the UofC doesn’t even SEE those students, its notions of self-worth are based only on the most capable students. Most of the top students at the UofC did NOT come because of the school’s reputation – they are there for economic and personal reasons – for most, Calgary is home.
With a bit of help, MRU could easily replace the UofC as the university of choice for those students. Provided MRU can establish a reputation for teaching and research that can actually be heard beyond the province’s borders, it WILL attract more and more top students.
Playing up MRU’s unique desire to conduct leading edge research with undergraduates could turn it into a highly desirable school. Actually following through on this desire by developing faculty who are well-informed in their areas of research and who know how to supervise is an important part of this.
…Part Four in the series on “Becoming a University”
In order to make the transition from a college to a university……
“If I can’t see you, you’re not working” is a very corporate attitude, and an old-fashioned one at that. It also implies a lack of trust that does not foster an atmosphere where innovation happens.
Being an Academic means you learn to balance life and work without the need for physical separation of job and home. True, not everyone manages to achieve that, and most of us fail occasionally, but assuming that I am not working if I am not physically in the classroom or in my office is a corporate attitude and NOT conducive to scholarly work.
Teaching schedules for people in the TSS (Teaching, Service & Scholarship) stream MUST be arranged to allow for time to do research – which usually means they must have at least one day a week where they are not teaching.
It is also helpful to assign the same course for several years or multiple sections of the same course when possible – preparing for a course one hasn’t taught before can easily take 10 hours to prepare a one hour class. I realize that this can’t be written in stone, but if I have no assurances that I will be able to teach the course again, I will not have the same investment in developing that course than I would if I could feel some sense of ownership for it.
I have heard some people say that they get bored teaching the same course more than once or twice in a row. I’ve thought about that and the only way I can see that happening is if they are doing little more than coming to class and teaching from canned notes, books and exercises. If you have someone in your department like this: KEEP AN EYE ON THEM.
Make sure that it is possible to work from home – much of the technical infrastructure is currently set up to make working from home very difficult. Besides, working from home when possible is a MUCH greener way to go.
…Part Three in the series on “Becoming a University”
In order to make the transition from a college to a university……
There are people on campus who are very innovative in their teaching to be sure, but there are also a great many who have taught the same way for decades and believe that since hand-written monochrome slides on an overhead were fine for a community college, they will also be fine for an institution wishing to become a top-ranking undergraduate university.
This technique is not bad in and of itself (it is possible to do great and fascinating things on a blackboard with a piece of chalk), but if that is ALL you can do (or are willing to do), then that IS a problem. Teaching remains the primary focus at MRU and it is one of the things that attracted me to it, but in order to lead the pack (and I really believe it can) people must be helped to embrace modern technology.
As Vygotsky said, “The invention of new methods that are adequate to the new ways in which problems are posed requires far more than a simple modification of previously accepted methods.” ADC can play a key role here, but the faculty must also be encouraged to shift their attitudes into the current century.
