Classrooms are, at their best, learning communities. Unfortunately, with the rise of the PERSONAL computer (PC), computing classrooms have evolved to meet the needs of the computer, rather than the learner. In so doing, often both the needs of the computer and the learner go unmet. Consider the all too typical situation of a room that has been retrofitted to provide dozens of electrical outlets and network connections, but with no improvements in the air conditioning. It seems to have escaped the attention of the room’s designers that computers, even at idle, generate many BTUs of heat… as do students! The body heat from 15-20 students in a room is considerable.

I stress the personal aspect of personal computer here not because I think you don’t know what I mean by a PC. Rather, it’s because that individual context, the idea that the computer is meant for individual, personal use is important in a learning environment. PCs are designed with the individual in mind. Even when the idea of having multiple users was adopted in consumer PC operating systems, the idea was still that one user would be logged in at a time, working alone. In the more advanced operating systems, you can switch between the individual user contexts.

What you can’t do easily with a personal computer is collaborate, and that’s a problem for educational uses of computers both in terms of the operating system design and the design of computing classrooms.

Ideally, computing classrooms would include

• room configurations that support collaboration
• movable tables to support small groups, seminars, and lectures
• ready access to power outlets, both on the walls and in the floor
• wired network access for a portion of the users, since not all devices support wireless
• sufficient wifi coverage to support a full class, all downloading needed software at the same time, since not all devices support wired connections (e.g., iPhones, iPads, Macbook Air, other ultrabook format computers)
• a high-resolution projector, so that applications that use significant screen real estate can be projected: Photoshop, Blender, Xcode, other programming integrated development environments.
• network storage that supports collaboration (where will students and ad-hoc groups share files?)
• a storage strategy that supports collaboration (how to handle collisions among students saving?)
• Power outlets that are not sunk into tables, allow transformer bricks (e.g., the Apple iPad or MacBook’s power supply without the extension cable) to be plugged in, and are spaced far enough apart that multiple bricks can be plugged in.
• Additional power support for direct USB charging of devices.
• software that supports collaboration
• MoonEdit,
• SubEthaEdit,
• Google Docs,
• Wikis,
• GIT,
• etc.

When a new product comes out, it takes 6-12 months for production of accessories to ramp up, by which time you already have something that works (rather than something you’d love to have) and you’re approaching a new product release (which will change the device’s form factor). For example, iPhone 4 cases… MacBook cases… iPad cases, etc…

I love my MacAlly faux-suede Bookstand iPad case… I worried about ordering them sight unseen, but I couldn’t have been happier with mine — it has provided great protection and no fuss. It gives me access to all the ports and gives me comfort when I put the iPad into a bag.

Yet, if these two things had been out at the time, I might have gone with the combination of them, instead:

• http://www.zagg.com/accessories/zaggmate-ipad-case
• http://www.gelaskins.com/store/skins/tablets_and_ereaders/iPad
  

I don’t whether I would have liked them better or worse than the Bookstand, but I like the idea of them.

So-called “content providers” who provide little to no content in their RSS feeds break my flow. They’re an annoyance to read. Their one-line teasers drive me away from their content, not toward it. I tend to unsubscribe from those feeds, rather than visit their websites.

If your one-paragraph introduction is compelling, I’ll visit your site to read the rest. However, your one-line teasers are rarely compelling and often annoyingly vacuous.

Please, provide the content and let me decide how to consume it.

With the explosion of applications for the iPhone and iPad, I wanted to point out that, for many things, I don’t want an app for that! Consider the works of Shakespeare; I really don’t want a separate app for each of his plays and sonnets. Some books and magazines are being published as separate apps, to take advantage of the graphics in OpenGL ES, to control content distribution, etc; I understand their reasoning. But I don’t want one-app-per-book; it’s too messy and disjoint. Similarly, I don’t want one-app-per-magazine or one-app-per-newspaper; I read too many sources each day for that model to work.

What I want is to be able to retrieve, review, annotate, and share content I view with the tools I find most natural and that enable my workflow. I do wish “content providers” could grasp that and start providing some content, instead of trying to lock it away.

Like many educators, I worry about the level of effort that my students commit to their studies (the process) and the quality of their work (the product). We call the process many things: engagement, time on task, passion… But we mean to describe that self-driven, motivated commitment to learning for the sake of learning that we value.

Unfortunately, in many educational environments, the standard proxy for effort is the course grade. Grades are a poor proxy, but are so ingrained in educational practice (in some of the institutions where I teach) and in students’ minds that it may be useful to consider a way to structure grade rewards to encourage the genuine engagement from students that we desire.

I’ve tried to address this in my syllabi and in my course designs by assuring students in various ways. Most recently, I’ve tried to get them to understand that they start out in my class with an A and that it’s theirs to lose by not doing the course work. I’ve had some success with that approach and some students have embraced the notion that they start at the high end of the scale and not at the low end. It’s subtle, but seems to help some students’ mindset.

I’ve recently been trying to reconcile that with my insistence in classes that students should view the syllabus as the least they can do to pass a course; they should view it as a floor, rather than a ceiling. But why should they, when they get an A for doing what’s listed in the syllabus? The potential reward (or lack thereof) doesn’t match the effort I’d like to see my students make.

Meanwhile, I’ve read Carol Dweck’s work on the perils of praise which, if I read it correctly, comes down to two main findings:

• If you praise outcomes (using rewards, e.g.), learners will tend not to take risks. Instead, they’ll do only those things they know they can do, because they’ve done them before and know it will bring rewards.
• If you prize effort, then learners will tend to take risks, even if it might lead to failure, because they learn to value the process, rather than the product.

I’ve also been thinking about Daniel Pink’s work on the motivation distribution: reward too little or too much and individuals aren’t motivated; reward enough to cover the necessities and individuals are motivated to improve.

How can I build those ideas into my course designs?

Effort is difficult to observe or quantify, but we know it when we see the results. I can focus on the effort involved when I’m conversing with students, but how can I encode the value I place on effort in forms that will resonate with students who don’t typically engage in conversations with their instructors?

Setting the right reward structure might be easier, however. Simply create a syllabus that outlines what students need to do to attain a respectable B in a course and leave an A-level project up to the individual student to conceive of, propose, and execute. Think of the A-level project as the student’s 20% flex time. They get to be creative; in fact, need to be creative in order to receive the highest rewards. The project design, itself, can be a series of milestones that presses students to think early and often about their original contribution to the class.

Some students will be happy working toward a B and leaving it at that, while the others—the grade-seekers and aspirers—will be called on to think about their learning experience and about what sparks their creative talents.

I was reading the old VerizonMath meme recently and began thinking about it in terms of a teaching moment. George Vaccaro was clearly trying very hard to teach the Verizon employees a little something about math, and they just weren’t getting it. Part of the problem is surely, as everyone points out, the lack of math common sense of the Verizon employees involved; a trait all too common in American today.

But from another perspective, George himself contributed to the problem. If you read the (unverified) transcript of the exchange, you’ll notice that there several points where George tries, with good intentions, to lead the employees through a line of reasoning that can lead to only one possible conclusion: that 2/1000 of a dollar is not the same currency value as 2/1000 of a cent.

George: Yes, do you you recognize there’s a difference between those 2 numbers ["point zero zero two dollars and point zero zero two cents"]?

[pause]

M: No.

G: Okay, is there a difference between 2 dollars and 2 cents?

M: Well, yeah, sir..

G: Well okay, is it.. is there a difference between .002 dollars and .002 cents?

M: .002 dollars and .002 cents.

G: Yes, is there a difference between..

M: Sir, sir, they’re.. they’re both the same if you, if you look at ‘em on paper-wise

In that moment, George and the Verizon employee (Mike or just “M”) had a meeting of the minds. They probably shared a common mental model of the value of currency. I say “probably” because we can’t know, from the outside, what George and Mike were actually thinking in that moment nor can they, post hoc, likely reconstruct what they were actually thinking in that moment. Still, George seems to have had Mike at a point of common understanding:

G: Okay, is there a difference between 2 dollars and 2 cents?

M: Well, yeah, sir..

But then George lets the moment slip away.

G: No.. they’re not, actually. It.. is .5 dollars the same as .5 cents?

M: Is .5 dollars..?

G: Is half a dollar..

M: That would be.. That would be 50 cents.

G: A half a dollar.. is it the same as a half of a cent?

M: No.

By changing the values involved, George confused Mike… You can see the moment it happened: when Mike struggled to think about the different quantities being given. As a learner in that moment, Mike was probably trying to glean from the examples being presented just what George’s point was. He was trying to find order in the pieces of the puzzle George had so far shared with him but, as many learners do, Mike ended up confused, instead of enlightened.

In my view, what George should have done at that point was to exploit the parallelism of not only the ideas, but also the precise language that he and Mike shared. What would that look like? Well, the ideal exchange would have been:

G (fictional): Okay, is there a difference between two tenths of a dollar and two tenths of a cent?

G (fictional): Okay, then, is there a difference between two hundredths of a dollar and two hundredths of a cent?

G (fictional): Okay, well, one way to represent “two hundredths of a dollar” is to say “zero point zero zero two dollars” and to represent “two hundredths of a cent” we can say “zero point zero zero two cents”. Now, you’ve just agreed that 0.002 dollars is different from 0.002 cents, correct?

I believe, had George done that, that Mike would have had a better chance of seeing the problem with his reasoning. Mike would have been able to see clearly that 0.002 dollars and 0.002 cents are different currency values.

There are several points in the transcript that reflect this issue: when Mike gets confused, George injects a different example in an attempt to build some critical mass of evidence. But Mike isn’t able to organize the evidence and, so, the valuable distinction that George understands and is trying to convey to Mike isn’t understood by Mike.

The problem, of course, is that “cents” itself hides a multiplier. “Cents” means 1/100 of a dollar, in this context. So, what George is really arguing is that

0.002 * 1 dollar does not equal 0.002 * (1/100) dollar

But, of course, I’m now guilty of the same massing of evidence.

I see in public policy debates, as well as educational settings, that the desire to present a coherent collection of evidence is instead interpreted as disjoint examples.

My solution is a scientific one: hold all things constant, except one. In other words, exploit the parallelism inherent in the issue being considered.

According to a recent AAUP report, 68% of all faculty appointments in American colleges and universities are non-tenure track; over 50% are part-time, so-called contingent faculty. I am one of them and, while I love teaching and, by many accounts, am pretty darned good at it, I’m still a part-time employee, subject to chance, and that causes problems both for me and my students.

Contingent faculty include those who are hired to teach on a temporary basis, usually on a semester-to-semester basis. Among other things, this means that we’re only employed for 14 weeks at a time. We’re offered the opportunity to teach a class just a few days or weeks before the class is scheduled to begin. If there is low enrollment or a budget short-fall, the offer can be revoked without warning, and we’re left unemployed for 14 weeks. This happened to me recently when I received the “maybe next term” email. Polite as that email may be, what it really says is, “take (at least) three months off, unpaid, and without benefits”. 50% of American higher education faculty are teaching in fear of that email. Any rational person would understand that such things will have an affect on the teaching that does take place.

Because of the last minute hiring process, I will, almost by definition, not be part of the curriculum development or textbook selection for a course. I’ll also miss the deadlines for requesting software, computing, or other resources for the course, which typically are set 8-10 weeks before classes are scheduled to begin.

Instead, I and many other contingent faculty are left dealing with a curriculum that is new to us, with a textbook that may or may not suit our teaching and classroom styles, and without institutional resources that might benefit our teaching and our students’ learning. We’re expected to do instructional planning on-the-fly and to understand the intended learning outcomes of the course and the relationship of the course to the rest of the curriculum on a plug-and-play basis; we’re a cog in a wheel and can be easily replaced, we’re told in terms both implicit and explicit. It’s no wonder that so many contingent faculty work by trying to stay just a few chapters ahead of their students. It’s no wonder that students notice.

If lucky, one may be on the “short list” of people who might be offered a course. If no permanent faculty member wants to teach the course; and if the course isn’t being used to support a graduate student, who can be paid even less; then you might be offered the course, if the budget permits. This is the very definition of contingent.

Moreover, the job opportunities for contingent faculty are limited by the number of colleges and universities that are within driving distance and that offer courses that one is reasonably qualified to teach. It’s unreasonable to think that someone would pick up their life, their family, and their home to move to a new city for a 14 week appointment or, for that matter, even a year-long appointment, with no chance for stability. Yet that’s how many contingent faculty live.

For their services, contingent faculty are typically compensated $2,000 – $5,000 per course. Working at a large state university, I’m offered $3,000 per course, regardless of the number of students in the class. This has meant that I’ve taught as many as 600 students spread across three courses in one semester for the kingly sum of $9,000, before taxes. That’s $18,000 per year; take home pay: approximately $12,000 per year, from which I’m expected to pay living expenses and, somehow, try to reduce my own student loans.

We’re also the low hanging fruit. When budget cuts are required, we’re the least secure employees with the least bargaining power. It’s convenient to reduce head count, even as it decimates- sometimes literally- course offerings to do so.

But we do it. We do it because we love teaching. We do it because we love working with students, and learning, and knowledge.

The reality, I believe, is that it affects us. It diminishes us each time we’re told that we have to provide our own paper and our own chalk. It diminishes us when we have to tell students that we can’t be their advisors because we’re not on the permanent faculty. It diminishes us as we struggle to do the thing we love and pay our bills, too.

In every way that being contingent affects us, it affects our students, as well. We’re stretched thin: we either don’t have or must share an office on campus in which to meet with students; we’re less engaged with campus life, because we’re rushing off to our next paying gig; we’re less available and less plugged in, and our students notice.

But, to borrow a phrase from General George S. Patton, “God help me, I do love it so”.

So, What Do We Do About It?

These are not new problems, but they haven’t been solved. In the current economy, it’s critical to address these issues as institutions cut budgets and scale back faculty. It seems to me that there are three categories of possible solutions: tenure, reality, and the unknown.

We could re-embrace the tenure model and immediately begin hiring contingent faculty into tenure-track positions, effectively reversing the trend toward contingency-as-the-norm. There are serious issues with tenure, however, that are well articulated elsewhere: it’s a long, difficult process to which not all academics want to subject themselves; it imposes long-term financial and cultural burdens on departments and institutions; and it hasn’t lived up to its promise of ensuring academic freedom; to name a few. At many institutions, tenure involves an evaluation not only of ones teaching, but also ones research and publications track record and community service; all proxies for the value one brings to the intellectual life of the institution, the discipline, and society at large. It’s likely that many contingent faculty would not want to compete in all of these areas.

Alternatively, we could acknowledge the shift in our culture from life-long employment toward a more mobile workforce and redesign our institutions, processes, and expectations to match.

• Our campus resources (information technology, administrative support, etc.) could address contingent faculty needs more aggressively, reaching out to and supporting last minute hires as a matter of course, rather than viewing them as temporary annoyances to be ignored. For years, I could not authorize my notebook computer for use in my own classroom for use during lectures, because I wasn’t on the permanent faculty.
• Institutions could ensure a living wage for contingent faculty.
• Institutions could adopt longer-term contracts (say, a few years, with the possibility for renewal) to promote stability, institutional identity, and synergistic benefits to both the institution and the individual. Teaching-track positions are one way this facet is being addressed, although too few institutions are embracing this, so far.
• We could encourage contingent faculty to bring their own course designs with them to our institutions. Many contingent faculty have courses they would love to teach, but since they’re not part of the curriculum design process, those courses will never be offered. I’ve personally been told by top-level administrators that, if I want my course designs to see the light of day, I should remove my name and put a permanent faculty member’s name on the proposal. Intellectual dishonesty apparently knows no bounds.
• Publishers could remove institution-oriented policies for obtaining review copies of textbooks (requiring an institutional office address for shipment, e.g.). Additionally, reduce the time it takes to get a desk copy (usually it takes a couple of weeks to receive the instructor copy of a textbook that has been adopted for classroom use).
• We could, as a society, shift from employer-based health insurance and pensions to portable instruments that are employee-based. As it stands, contingent faculty have to re-qualify for health insurance with each new institution and, sometimes, with each new semester, enduring the waiting period before coverage begins each time. Contingent faculty are often required to pay into pension plans in which they have no hope of ever vesting. Since contingent faculty are often considered part time employees, it could take 10-20 years of continuous service to vest!

Finally, there are the great unknown options; at least, unknown to me! The ideas I haven’t thought of, haven’t heard about, and so haven’t considered. I’m open to new ideas and encourage lively debate on how we can meet the needs of institutions, faculty, and students.

I like Safari’s privacy protecting mode. I use it often. You should, too. Privacy isn’t about what we might choose to hide, but rather about what we might choose to reveal about ourselves. The general public has no right to know everything that I am or everything that I do. [end of rant]

Now that I’ve said that clearly, let me point out how Apple has missed the boat on a few aspects of their privacy implementation in Safari.

My data should be mine to control and when my data is at risk, I should be warned and, ideally, protected from unintended disclosure. To me, that means that I should be able to set privacy as the default, I should be reassured that privacy protecting settings are active, and I should be warned if they’re going to be turned off. Safari does none of these things.

There’s no way to set “Private Browsing” as the default start-up state for Safari. I should transparently be able to configure my browser so that protecting me is the default. Full exposure should not be the mandated starting point. It’s a bit like requiring to get dressed in my driveway; the things I want to keep private have already been exposed to public scrutiny.

When you activate “Private Browsing” in Safari, you get a warning that no cookies or history will be saved once the window is closed. While that’s comforting, it’s offered more as a warning than an assurance that you’re now safe.

While you’re in “Private Browsing” mode, there’s no indicator that you’re protected, unless you pull down Safari’s application menu to check the check mark next to the menu item. Much like indicators of session encryption security (the little padlock icon in the upper-right corner of the Safari window), there should be a privacy indicator visible whenever the option is active. I want to know at a glance whether my data might be leaked!

When you disable “Private Browsing”, there’s no notice at all. If you quit or crash Safari and relaunch, private browsing is silently turned off. That’s not at all reassuring!

Please, Apple, think of users’ protection first in the user experience! Is the user safe by default? Do they know that? Are they warned when they might be compromised?

I was excited by the recent update to Apple’s own Address Book application that revealed a “sync with Google” option– albeit only if you happen to have connected an iPod touch or iPhone to that computer. Unfortunately, the offering is less than transparent.

It’s unclear, for example, how to initiate  a sync with Google. The instructions seem to suggest that it will happen the next time iSync is used to sync your devices– but iPhones and iPod Touches don’t use iSync (at least, not obviously). They’re managed through the iTunes interface, and no where in the iTunes interface is there a mention of Google syncing.

Additionally, there doesn’t seem to be any ability to control the granularity of data pushed to Google; it’s an all or nothing proposition. So, if you’ve got account numbers, passwords (not recommended), or personal details about individuals (sammy likes milk before bedtime), all of that information is going to get pushed out to Google.

I would much prefer to be able to specify the fields to be pushed out. For example, I really only want Google to store the names, email addresses, and screen names of my contacts– they don’t need to have the details of who’s seeing whom that I keep in the notes field. A simple “Advanced…” click list of the fields would suffice to allow me to control my data better. (It is MY data, right….?)

Given this constraint, I’m sorry to say that Address Book’s Google sync option has to be a “nothing” choice for me right now. I’ve got too much data in my contacts list that I don’t trust Google (or anyone else) with.

I’m a fan of Apple products. I like the design and I like the overall user experience. That’s not to say that Apple products (both hardware and software) or Apple itself is without flaw; they certainly fall down in some spots. But I’m reassured that they at least try, unlike so many other companies out there.

One of the areas I wish Apple would get its act together on is convergence with its own product lines! Different docks for each iPod/iPhone model has always bothered me, although the dock connector has been going strong for some time now. Similarly, the initial software disparity between the iPod Touch and the iPhone — shameless and unnecessary! The marginal cost of including the full suite of Safari, Mail, and so on for iPod Touch users from the start would have been so much less than the public relations fiasco of having to charge for the software upgrade, once Apple finally realized the error of their ways.

I’d like to pick on one particular technology where Apple missed the opportunity boat, however: The earphones that come with the iPhone; they’re not the highest audiophile quality around, but they suffice. The inclusion of the mic and push to answer/hangup/play/pause button on the right-hand earbud is wonderful. Apple has managed to train me to use it and I love them for it. I love it when the music pods down when there’s an incoming call, and I love the ability to just click-to-answer.

I love the features so much so that I’m shocked when I’m using those very same earphones plugged into my MacBook and they don’t work as my Apple training has led me to expect.

• I should be able to listen to my music (no problem)
• I should be able to click to play/pause music (can’t)
• I should be able to use them as a headset/mic for audio/video iChats (can’t)
• When an audio/video iChat invite comes in, my music should pod down and I should be able to click-to-answer (can’t)

In short, I want the same features on my notebook that I have on my iPhone with those cute earbuds! I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve been sitting in the library or cafe and had an iChat invite come in and you know, my first instinct was to click the button on the earphones. Invariably, I then have a moment of confusion, followed by disappointment as I context-switch and figure out how to answer the invite.

Apple can do better at very little cost, it would downgrade gracefully for users of standard earphones just like it does on the iPhone, and the overall Apple user experience would be smoother and black-turtle-neck-style cooler.