A response to the article posted by a friend

Read this first: http://chronicle.com/jobs/news/2008/09/2008091201c.htm
It is the article that this posting is about.

I definately agree with the part about the universities not watching out for the hidden costs that used to be part of what was paid for upfront with the contract. The clicker issue described in the article is one example of this. Another example is the time I spent in orientation learning how to grade using WebCT while training to be a TA for the chemistry department. The department now uses WebCT to post all student grades, allowing students to see their grades in progress, which in itself is an admirable thing. I know there are some classes where I would have loved to know my grade at different points throughout the semester. The negative part of using this system is that it can, at times, be unreasonably complicated. To learn how to put grades in the online gradebook, we(the roughly 40 new TAs for the chemistry department) sat in a computer lab for 2 hours while 3 professors taught us all the intricate details of using this system. We all got our hourly rate to attend this training. The grading used to be done in a paper gradebook (and in all actuality, still is, as we are required to keep a backup, non-electronic, version of the grades in case the system breaks) that required little training if any at all. If this is taken and extrapolated for all the departments on campus, you are probably looking at a cost of 10,000-20,000 dollars yearly just to train people on how to use the grading system. On the point presented halfway through the article dealing with the later generations of web users, especially the luddite users of web 4.0, the writer is correct in his predictions, but could be very wrong about the time required for this evolution. Technology has a way of making each jump forward take exponentially less time than the last. Take for example the progression between doing math with fingers and toes to now, when there is talk of developing quantum computers, which use qubits to do lightning fast calculations that now take years even with the fastest supercomputers. It took thousands of years to get to the industrial revolution and the first real mechanical computers. It then took 150 yeas to get to the first digital computers. Now fifty years later, depending on what you want to define as a paradigm shift, we have gone through probably 5-8 evolutionary jumps in computing technology to the point where, if I had the patience, I could be writing this from my Ipod while walking between classes on central campus. The jump from email to chat rooms to facebook to twitter has taken roughly 15 years , give or take a couple on each end. In other words, the jump to web 2.0 (which for the context of this argument, I will describe as facebook, youtube and the like, even though some may argue that it existed even earlier in the form of slashdot and similar services) took 12 years, the jump to web 3.0 (twitter, iReporters on CNN) has taken 2. Many times when I go to check cnn.com in the morning after reading the newspapers, there will be at least 2 stories on the main list from the iReporters, up from almost never a year ago. I feel that the shift to web 4.0 is already beginning, but the members of the web 1.0 generation are too slow to adapt to the current paradigms to realize this. If you look at facebook, with their current attempt to change the overall look and feel of their service, you will find many members who are displeased with this and are jumping ship. Yes there will always be those who are ready to change every time something new comes out, but the vast majority of people prefer status quo to constant change. It won't be the new generation of people that become the luddites, it will be the current generation who is in a constant race to keep up with each day's newest technology and in constant danger of falling off the wagon.

Therefore, what needs to be done to limit apathy towards technology use by universities and to reduce overall costs is to have all the interested parties: professors, students, IT, administrators, and TAs as well as any others sit down and have an honest discussion of the needs of technology and to get a custom designed solution rather than settling for an off the shelf, out of the box solution.


Just my 2 cents worth.

Teaching Chemistry

This year, I got an email from my department's admin assistant asking me to be a teaching assistant for the chemistry department. I was like, 'score, this is gonna be awesome', thinking that it would be great for the ol' resume. I've been here the past 3 weeks now, learning first how to teach, and then in the last week, actually being out in the class. My feelings about teaching are mixed; on one hand, I love being able to pass on the knowledge that I learned a few years ago about chemistry, and I get better at it while preparing for class. On the other hand, it's heartbreaking when you have to give a quiz on the material you covered in class just two days before and half the class misses the exact thing that you told them to be careful about when solving problems. It also is hard when you can't give partial credit on a problem, and a student is so close to having the answer, but has missed just one part of a multistep problem. I try to be a good teacher; I write worksheets for the class that should be almost exactly what will be on the quiz. So the question is, how do I get the students, who are mostly in majors like aerospace or electrical engineering to have the same level of respect and love, no scratch that... the same level of appreciation for the subject of chemistry that I've learned over the years? I know that most of them aren't likely to use the subject much in their working careers, but a few will be working closely with people with majors like mine. The other isssue is in just the basic engineering math, I want them to understand that the skills that they learn in my class are the SAME math skills that they will be using throughout their entire careers. I don't want to let a civil engineer who can't do unit conversion pass my class and go on to not be able to do them their entire career, just as much as I don't want a biology student who won't take the time to learn how the heart works go on to med school to be a surgeon. I guess what I really want, most of all, is for them not to make the same mistakes that I did in my first year of school, going to class and being bored, thinking "I won't ever use this stuff", sleeping through class and just putting in the bare minimum effort to get somewhere between an A and a B.... well whoops, I'm not a EE anymore, I changed and became a ChE... and let me tell you, every single thing that was taught in those basic classes, be it physics, chem, bio, even intro programming, I have used somewhere in another class. Life isn't just about putting in the bare minimum; It's about putting in everything you have, and then some; its about running till you bleed, studying until your body makes you sleep, and then getting coffe and doing it again, wanting to rise above this stupid effed up world where we all think we can get by with just the minimum, because thats what everyone else does. You know, I have people who think I'm crazy for even trying a major like ChE in the first place, let alone wanting to just use that as a stepping stool to go onto greater things, like med school and then to be a thoracic surgeon, or grad school to be a phd engineer working on solving the energy crisis that is enveloping the world as I type. Well to those of you who are willing to work with every fiber that you have, I say forget that first group of people, they are the ones who are the hangers on of society, the ones who will be working for those of you who are willing to put in the work when it counts, that is, all the time. Life is not supposed to be easy, its supposed to be challenging. I love the poem by Frost...Take the road less traveled; I don't care if I have to use a chainsaw or even one of those big logging machines to get through the brush, I don't care if the road has a chasm in the middle with a 2000 foot drop, I will build a bridge and if I can't build a bridge to get across, I will climb down with my bare hands and feet and cross the raging river at the bottom. I will perservere, I will get ahead... the only question is, will you?