Learning Innovation

The Violinist's Thumb does for DNA what Sam Kean's first book, The Disappearing Spoon, did for the periodic table. He is able to transform what could be difficult and dry scientific concepts into compelling narratives driven by a series of larger than life personalities.

I used to think that I was a worrier. I worry about my family, my job, my country, and the growing gap between consumer and enterprise educational platforms. But after reading Daniel Smith's very funny and informative memoir of anxiety, Monkey Mind, I have come to realize that I'm an amateur when it comes to worrying.

This afternoon I participated in an excellent demo from Groopex, a startup that provides seamless WebEx integration and value added features to Moodle (and hopefully soon Blackboard as well).

We constantly worry about the widening experience gap between consumer and education enterprise technologies.

Matthew Yglesias has zero to say about higher ed and the price of tuition in his excellent Kindle Single The Rent is Too Damn High. This oversight (doesn't everyone relate everything to higher ed?) should not stop us generalizing some of Yglesias' conclusions to our world.

It is not possible to overstate the degree to which Doonesbury defines the cultural milieux from which so many of us in higher education and associated knowledge industries are drawn from. How many of you have Doonesbury cartoons taped up to your office door? Raise your hand if Doonesbury is the first thing you look for in your morning paper.

We can debate Brian Kibby's vision that higher ed should go completely digital in 36 months. Many of us have already commented on his essay "Digital Deadline", and I'm sure that you will have some strong opinions as well when you go back and read his piece and the subsequent discussion.

I am one of those higher ed administrators who started my career in teaching. Relatively quickly I moved from a full-time faculty gig to the start-up life, and then into educational technology.