Blogs

Let me explain how I understand Course Manager, as I remain somewhat confused about exactly what this does and how big a deal this platform might be.

To cap off our crossover week with ProfHacker, Alex sat down with this week’s contributors for an insightful conversation about their approach to maintaining a productive schedule. Building on this week’s posts, Alex reviews the authors’ suggestions for improved workflow and poses some follow-up questions on the technology and techniques they suggested in their contributions.

In some of our classes that fulfill the math requirement for the core curriculum, we occasionally teach sections involving logic, asking questions such as, “if we say ‘if A, then B’, does that mean that ‘if B, then A’?” I found myself thinking of these questions as I was delighted at the signs that sprung up on campus this week directing new students to various events on campus.

How do you sell the idea of liberal arts to an 18 year old? Admittedly, the question scans differently at different institutions. At the snooty/exclusive liberal arts colleges, the sale has already been made. At a community college in a non-affluent area -- my beat -- the issue is a little trickier.

The two weeks before the semester begins is a busy time, a time of fresh starts, new pencils, and crisp back-to-school-outfits. Now that I’m a parent, the fall begins with a joyous parade to my daughter’s school, collecting other parents and their children as we walk the four blocks of our tree-lined street.

Why think about productivity systems at all? Why try to think about ways we can be more productive? Doesn’t that imply we’re not doing enough, or that we’re wasting time?

Content management systems (CMS) allow administrators to update webpages without having to be extremely fluent with HTML, CSS, or JS. WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) editors, while not always perfect, offer up a familiar interface that looks very much like a standard word processor. All sorts of information can be created, uploaded, edited, and modified via a CMS.

If higher ed is to change then our educational technology leaders must play a central role. This call for change in higher ed begs the question - what sort of change?