Blogs

A recent series of three blog posts by Kathleen Fitzpatrick chimed nicely with two things I am thinking about these days: how scholars can best share their ideas in a digital age (and what the decisions scholars make will mean for libraries as we rejigger positions and allocate resources) and how I’m going to pull off a conference we’re holding this October on Nordic women crime writers. Event planning is not in my skill set (hey, my idea of a perfect wedding is eloping), but I’m really excited about putting readers, writers, and scholars together to see what happens.

I'm 100% certain that half of the things that I think and write about Blackboard are wrong, I'm just not sure which half. Blackboard is a hard company to "get" because education is such a diverse business, technology moves so quickly, and Blackboard contains so many people, products and services.

When the unusual heat gripped my part of the U.S. in the last few weeks, I did the only logical thing to do - I packed up each evening and took my daughter, and often a neighborhood friend or two, to the public pool. It was a great relief from the heat, and provided a wonderful end to the day. We often play together, splashing in the water that looks like a tortoise shell in the fading sunlight. However, she also likes to go off to swim with her friends, leaving me to either swim laps, to observe what is going on at the pool or to chat with fellow parents, many of whom are also left alone while their children play. As I sat back and took a breath, I found myself noticing several things.

It was the first “moon shot” for U.S. higher education.

For a long time the higher education community has debated the role of trustees, how they should participate in academic governance, and whether trusteeship even matters. There is a good deal of consensus about the latter — yes, trusteeship matters and I argue that it matters more at MSIs.

What are you taking home as the big story of BbWorld 2012? At this point (Wednesday night) I have 3 main takeaways.

The big news (thanks Kayvon Beykpour!) from Wednesday's multi-speaker keynote at BbWorld (#BbW12) is that in September, students will have the capability of taking their mobile learning destiny into their own hands. Presently, mobile options for students who wish to use Mobile Learn exist at the institutional level.

Following on from yesterday's post, and reflecting on posts dating from February, it strikes me that Greenback U's overriding concept of sustainability frames it as a technological problem. But, while we have a number of very-good technologically-oriented academic programs, we have far more departments, faculty and students who focus on the arts, the humanities and the social sciences. Maybe that's part of the reason that the sustainability issue has such a hard time getting traction around here.