Interesting stuff:
• I have to laugh at this. To laugh is not very charitable to the instructor. I too would be a bit peeved if the technology I used lost the grades for an exam, or any project. However, I kind of detest these clickers that are becoming ubiquitous in large lecture halls. There are certainly pros to their use, but it seems like it’s largely a racket for a company to make lots of money. At Oregon State, students have to buy their clickers themselves and are forced to buy a different one for each class.
• This Chronicle article points readers to Richard Smith’s talk claiming pushes toward open publishing in academia are analogous to the abolitionist movement. This seems like a rather severe and disingenous analogy. I think Smith (and many others) are right to make open publishing an issue of justice, but calling academics slaves to a publishing industry and equating open publishing to the push for the end of slavery is a bit too far.
• This article points to Scribd, which seems like a cool resource for people uploading their essays and articles to be shared, much like users upload videos to YouTube. I’ll have to check it out sometime.
• Here’s a cool wiki chronicling obsolete information technology skills, like formatting a floppy disk and dialing a rotary phone (via here.
