Check out Uncle Phil's take on University Personalization

Kaplan University... and Uncle Phil... believe in university personalization.

I just saw this video on TV, then YouTube'd it and read the comments that people had left. Commenter TheUnderKing said, "It's a great message about the current system, and I was hoping that it was going to be from some kind of independent organization. I was excited when I saw it on television and then angered when the Kaplan logo came up. But now I'm just glad that someone is saying it, at least this commercial isn't annoying like the others, it's inspiring."

That pretty much summarizes my opinion of it. Kaplan is on to something, and no disrespect to Kaplan or anyone who takes their courses, but it's still Kaplan. The point of Kaplan is personalization. It's a great tool for people who can't do the standard university in the standard way. Kaplan has a bit of a stigma, and it's not really taken too seriously -- mostly people know them from pushy advertising (some bloggers even call it Krap-lan), not because someone they know has attended Kaplan.

So, this isn't so much about the university as a specific school but The University as a concept as a whole. People want the ability to tailor their learning to their needs. Kaplan supports this. Hopefully the rest of the collegiate world will soon support it, too.

Facebook is eating the Internet

Sorry that this post is so late.


In other news... FACEBOOK IS TAKING OVER THE INTERNET.

Now that that's out, Facebook is expanding its reign.. Take a look at their latest announcement.
It says how now, you can be on other previously unaffiliated websites (Pandora, CNN, etc) and look for the "Like" button. If you Like something, it's posted to your news feed.

Some might say, whatever, cool. But do you know what that means? That means that Facebook now can track your non-Book related activity (which they probably have been doing for a while). Fabulous -- as if Facebook needed MORE information about us.

Facebook is becoming the new Google.

#Hardwithoutshoes

We discussed the shoe project as one of the benefits of internets and charities... check out the latest on Twitter...

"#hardwithoutshoes is a popular topic on Twitter right now.


@TOMSshoes started this hashtag for One Day Without Shoes (April 8), to raise awareness of those who cannot afford shoes."

...Nice to see it's a trending topic and that the internet fantasy has expanded to a second medium.

If it ain't broke....

Sunstein says personalization narrows the internet horizons, and that too much personalization leads to lack of common experience. I think, perhaps, that people already vote. Look at the almighty Google. When they launched Google Buzz, I'm fairly certain they thought they could replicate and expand upon the idea of Twitter. Same with Google Wave and Facebook. They've dominated everything else -- Google over Yahoo!, Dogpile, and every other search engine. Gmail over Hotmail, Yahoo!, and AOL. It makes sense that they would think that way. They're generally the winners. But, then the people "vote". They cast their vote by joining or continuing their usage of the original site that Google was trying to replicate.  They continue their usage and don't use the new and "improved" site that Google was trying to make.

So, what's left for them to do? Sit back and let someone else prosper? Heck, no. Talk some smack then talk about buying them out. Obviously the mature thing to do. That's what Google did with YouTube.

You say "democracy",

I say "monopoly."

Global fantasies and realities

One of the biggest internet fantasies is that of self-policing. Some say the internet is democratic because it allows the majority to monitor and filter the activities of the minority who might be in need of policing. This is evidenced through the different ways of reporting people who misuse common sites, such as Facebook where you can submit someone or an activity for review or AOL who used to employ and enforce TOS (Terms of Service) for misbehavers. For sites like those, the fantasy is able to be a reality.

Yahoo's territorial actions remind me of this concept. For Yahoo, the fantasy can be only that for its search features. It can realistically monitor its features for their discussion boards, but search can't be regulated. The reality is that the results of the searches should monitor themselves, the way Facebook and AOL have. It is the responsibility of the individual sites to monitor themselves in regards to the regulations of the countries they are based in, rather than the responsibility of Yahoo, who has a global obligation to return results for the searches, regardless of where the results are based in. It's impossible to make blanket statements for fantasies and realities because of examples like this.

Course Evaluations

Everyone hates doing course evaluations. Lots of us just throw them out, others scribble down the fastest thing they can write and get out of there like the room is on fire. There are some other times, though, when we actually put effort into them.

Have you ever looked at the results on the CUA evaluation page? I like to check it once and a while when a particular course has struck me in a very positive or very negative way. I find that my peers and I share similar opinions when it comes to certain professors and their teaching methods. I realized that their methods are evaluated by the students in a very similar way to the university personalization standards that we discussed.

For instance, the teachers I've had that utilize new media methods, engage the students in their teachings and are often on the younger side of the age spectrum get considerably higher marks than the old-school style teachers who lecture and write on the board get lower marks. So, even without discussing university personalization in a formal class setting, it would appear that our peers already have expectations of it.

Tethered Generativity

After studying for the midterm, I was thinking that even though a technology is technically tethered, it sometimes can still be generative. The first example that comes to mind is AOL Instant Messager.

This became apparent to me when I was playing with my new Blackberry, and I had five different instant messaging applications to choose from. Now, I'm sure that there was an instant messaging program that preceeded AIM, but whatever it was, I now have the capability to instant message from AIM, Yahoo, Google Talk, Windows Live and Blackberry. They all have different features that make them unique. Google Talk can be used in conjunction with Google Wave. Blackberry can be used anywhere, even overseas, with access to a phone line. So, I think that they are tethered technologies, but their ideas were clearly generative.

I imagine the same goes for all software. Before I had this idea, I did not really have an opinion on open source or private, but I think if things were open, we really would have a lot of good ideas floating around on the WWW. Knowing the codes definitely make the software easier to adapt, therefore granting endless possibilities of what it is capable of doing.

OLPC -- don't be ridiculous.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, there is no way I could support a program like One Laptop Per Child. I think people need to get their priorities right and figure out a way to solve more pressing problems. That being said, I do think it's appropriate to try and bridge the digital divide -- see my post about the company in Illinois that recycled the computer parts and donated them to schools. That is appropriate, because the majority of the kids in that school are generally cared for.

Say there were, 50,000 kids who deserved the laptops. Each laptop is supposed to go for around $100 each, so there's $5,000,000 on a technological lesson that would hardly teach them to sustain themselves and their families. I hardly think these kids are going to Google their way out of a better life. And why should we expect them to? They're surrounded by hunger, disease, poverty, but here kid, go tinker on this computer for a while.

Nicholas Negroponte might have been better off asking the UN how the world could better spend this money. Vaccines? Food? Schools? Spend the money on schools if you want to teach the kids!! I just get very frustrated by this whole thing.

Save the Winter Olympics!

With the commencement of the 2010 Winter Olympics at hand, many were asking -- does anyone even care about the winter olympics anymore? The general consensus was no. A few friends liked to watch the opening ceremonies and a handful of others liked to watch ice skating, but other than that, the Olympics were mainly viewed as an interruption to our regularly scheduled TV programming.

That's why Twitter is cool. I think it was around for the 2008 summer games (which people seem to like way more), but it probably wasn't big enough yet to have any kind of impact. Now, with the tweets of participating athletes, it gives things a new spin. Coupled with a recent press conference about not being able to participate, Lindsay Vonn tweeted about having to take a "bunch of painkillers." Although it seems very surface, such insight to athletes lives gives their followers a personal connection to the games. This, especially for the big name athletes, is helpful in a lot of ways. Ratings, because if people feel more connected to it, they'd tune in. Advertisers must love it, because it's a whole new, free in some regards, platform. Finally, fans love it -- either devoted or just "here for the party" kind of fans -- because there's a new 15 minutes of fame batch of celebrities allowing more of their lives to be displayed more intimately.

The Great Divide

This video is a news article about a Chicago based company that recycles computers that would have wound up in the landfill and gives them to needy children, in order to bridge the digital divide. It's a great concept, and it led me to think about the differences in the digital divides and the ease of bridging them in respective communities.

It's much easier to bridge the divide in America. People have the resources to teach themselves, and they have the resources to be able to donate to others. In third world countries, and places where they try to implement the One Laptop Per Child programs, it's just not feasible. In fact, it seems counterproductive. If by some chance the program had enough resources to distribute the laptops, they certainly don't have the resources to maintain the laptops effectively. It's hard to think about these children who would be teased with this promise of technology when it would be fleeting.

Class readings

These are the supplementary readings I suggested in class. I think I had a lot more to say than I realized and probably none of it came out right, so take a look at them and see if it could make sense.

The first, with the RSS feeds, was my example about how personalization is already in effect. I wanted to do extra research on RSS feeds because I didn't know what they were. My opinion on how they could translate to the university setting was that they could be used to combine all the different ways that professors use to disburse information about their classes (websites, groups, etc.) into one place. This would enhance your learning because all the information you need would be in one place, rather than having to track down five or so different sites to figure out what's due.

The second, about Google maps, was my example about personalization going a little far. Google mapping my general location, as a young female, is not appealing to me. I, for one, would prefer to remain untraced. It is cool to recommend different places to go, sure, but I'd much rather find my own than be tracked in that sort of way.

The third is about deleting the IP addresses that made search queries after six months. This was just something I offered as a counter argument to Google being creepy. I understand that it's based in Europe but at least it's been realized that having all your information tracked does hinder your privacy a great deal and some people are taking steps against it.

Hope that clears it up :)