Category: Technology

US broadband: still expensive (especially @ my house)

US broadband: still expensive, underwhelming (Ars Technica)

Ars gives a great update on how US broadband is still lagging behind the rest of the world. My DSL teaser rate recently ran out, so this has been a hot button issue in my home. Perhaps most telling:

To address some of the population density questions, the OECD also produces a chart of broadband penetration overlaid with a population density line. The chart confirms the low density of the US, though five countries with even lower densities still remain ahead of us.

I am starting to wonder if anyone is truly happy with all of their communication services (cell, internet, television… the lot). With the hundreds of dollars a good number of us spend on these services, should we expect better?

A Classical Education

I concluded my last post without supporting why I think a traditional education is extremely valuable.  In going back through my feeds, I found that Stanley Fish articulated it quite well in A Classical Education: Back to the Future – Opinionator Blog – NYTimes.com. He addresses it more in terms of the new emphasis on testing and the “practical” sciences, but I think he also makes a good case for a structured or traditional education.

In short, get knowledgeable and well-trained teachers, equip them with a carefully calibrated curriculum and a syllabus filled with challenging texts and materials, and put them in a room with students who are told where they are going and how they are going to get there.

Worked for me.

It worked for me as well.

Professing without a PhD

Ed tech folks will be very interested in this thought provoking Chronicle article: A Self-Appointed Teacher Runs a One-Man ‘Academy’ on YouTube

A few highlights:

The most popular educator on YouTube does not have a Ph.D. He has never taught at a college or university. And he delivers all of his lectures from a bedroom closet.

… occasional mistakes are part of his method. By watching him stumble through a problem, students see the process better, he argues. Sometimes they correct him in comments on his YouTube videos, and he says this makes students more engaged with the material.

Over all, he said, he’s collected about $150,000 in donations and makes $2,000 a month from ads on his Web site.

I would still argue that, while inquiry based learning has a place in education, there’s still a number of things gained from a traditional classroom education (especially for the average bear).

Google’s investment in the future of journalism

The Atlantic :: Magazine :: How to Save the News.

Esteemed journalist James Fallows pens an article about how Google is trying to create conditions that will help pay-for-journalism survive in the free, online news world. He clearly lays out the problems of sticking with print and convincing advertisers of the value of an online ad.  The real interesting part is the last third: how we might start to find and pay for good content. From the perspective of Google, this makes sense–more reliable searches with better content.

My blog has been quiet for awhile because I’ve been “too busy to read.” I’m working on that problem, because reading and writing are too central to how we think.  It’s like I’ve been holding my breath for a month.