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April 27, 2006
UC Berkeley joins iTunes University
UC Berkeley has joined the dozen or so universities that are publishing materials on iTunes. Cal is offering podcasts of courses, events, and campus features. This is partly a follow up to its earlier webcasting efforts - http://webcast.berkeley.edu/ - built on Real Media.
The courses (aka "coursecasts") are following the MIT OpenCourse lead, and the lectures are available for public download to folks on and off campus. Currently the 27 courses come from the sciences - Biology 1, Chemistry 1, Physics 8. Interesting exceptions are Hubert Dreyfus's (Philosophy 7: "Existentialism in Literature and Film" ) and Jennifer Burn's History 7B: From the Civil War to the Present. There is also an undergraduate polytical science symposium featuring what appears to be weekly guest's from the Bay Area.
The events category focuses on campus lectures and performance - Arts has the poetry lunch, and with 36 podcasts accounts for nearly half of the offerings.
The campus life has tours, sport events, etc.
The press release describing the program notes that the reach is indeed global. "At each lecture, I feel that I am presenting European history not just to my students but to the world," said UC Berkeley history professor Thomas Laqueur , who has received positive feedback from subscribers in Sweden, India and China, among other countries. [History 5, European Civilization from the Renaissance to the Present]
By Yasmin Anwar, Campus extends reach to iPod generation, Media Relations, 25 April 2006.
http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2006/04/25_podcast.shtml
Posted by sjc at 8:54 AM | Comments (0)
April 24, 2006
Michigan Online Course Requirement
The Michigan legislature has enacted a law requireing that alll high school students take an online course or learning experience, or have the online learning experience incorporated into each of the required 16 credits of the Michigan Merit Curriculum. (Science, Mathematics, English, Foreign Languages, Physical Education or Health, and the Arts provide the curriculum framework for the requirement.) [1]
A Michigan Virtual High School (operating as the Michigan Virtual University, http://www.mivu.org/) currently provides some of the required courses and experiences.
An article in the Chronicle of Higher Education, a Michigan requires online attendance, has sparked a discussion about the merits and not of the plan. The discussion follows the normal discourse : it's not the right answer for everyone (nothing is the right answer for everyone); we didn't have this requirement when I was in school (neither did any of us), etc.
[1] PNNOnline, Michigan First State to Require Online Learning, Monday, April 24, 2006/ http://www.pnnonline.org/article.php?sid=6678&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0
[2] Wired Campus, Michigan Requires Online Attendance, The Chronicle of Higher Edcatuibm April 20, 2006. http://chronicle.com/wiredcampus/article/1193/michigan-requires-online-attendance
Posted by sjc at 1:44 PM | Comments (0)
April 23, 2006
All the news that fits ...
De Tijd, a Belgian financial newspaper, has begun testing versions of electronic paper. De Tijd will distribute 200 devices - the iLiad eReader from iRex - to a selected group of high technology early adopters and test the electronic service for three months.
The iLiad eReader is based on technology licensed from E Ink of Massachusetts. The current reader is black - and - white and uses reflected light rather than back lighting to illuminate the text allowing use in outdoor or indoor environments. The device supports note taking, internet access, and removable storage. If brought to market, the device is expected to cost less than $100.
De Tijd's advertising clients are interested in tailoring advertising to both the particular newpaper reader's profile as well as the time of day the ad is being noticed - this would allow advitizers to push coffee in the morning and beer in the evening.
Sources:
Doreen Carvajal, The future has arrived, and it's yours to read, International Herald Tribune, Sunday, April 23, 2006. http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/04/23/business/epapers24.php
iRex, iLiad e-Reader product sheet. http://www.irextechnologies.com/shop/products/iliad.htm
Posted by sjc at 11:19 AM | Comments (0)
April 19, 2006
This Sign for Rent
One of the new features at the St. Louis Cardinal's Busch Stadium is a system that allows fans to send a text message that will appear on the scoreboard in right-center field for $2.99. That system, however, broke down on the Cardinals on Wednesday night when an obscenity slipped through the screening system and appeared on the board.
The scoreboard was also an issue Thursday. In the seventh inning, the video board in right field aired a live report by FSN reporter Jim Hayes, who referred to the Brewers as "over-rated." The comment caught the attention of both clubhouses and dugouts, and it's believed the Cardinals were making inquiries into how the report was broadcast throughout the stadium.
St Louis Post Dispatch, April 13, 2006. http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/sports/stories.nsf/cardinals/story/D031950F5AFF53EF8625715000186471?OpenDocument
Posted by sjc at 8:46 AM | Comments (0)
April 10, 2006
The doctor almost always is in
The Central Greene School District (Greene County, Pennsylvania) is the first school district in Pennsylvania to use telepsychiatry. The pilot program was introduced at Waynesburg Central elementary and high schools this year.
"Now, children can make appointments without leaving the school building. ... Students who regularly leave school to make psychiatrist appointments can miss up to 30 school days a year, according to statistics compiled by Human Services. Through telepsychiatry, those missed days can be reduced by up to 75 percent."
In the photograph, Dr. Terri Roh, a child psychiatrist at Centerville Clinics, speaks with an actress posing as a patient in this image taken from an informational DVD. Roh is demonstrating telepsychiatry.
[1] Cara Host, The doctor almost always is in, Washington (Pennsylvania) Observor Reporter, Sunday, April 9, 2006. page 1. http://www.observer-reporter.com/main.asp?SectionID=6&SubSectionID=15&ArticleID=15966
Posted by sjc at 10:17 AM | Comments (0)
April 6, 2006
Study notes for your iPod
iPREPpress, a publisher of ebooks destined for the iPod, has announced a pocket reference set including the Merriam-Webster Pocket Dictioonary (now available), the Pocket Thesaurus, the Rhyming dictionary for Song & Hip-Hop Writers, and the Pocket Atlas (soon). The iPREPpress downloads cost about $10, a paperback version is about $5 at Amazon.Com, a Franklin electronic edition is about $50.
The reference set joins stand-by classics such as SparkNotesstudy and test preparation guides. As a teaser, the iPREPpress makes available a dozen or so documents in the public domain ...
The 3rd and 4th Generation iPods support a "Notes" feature - a built in reader can render a subset of HTML tags including links to other files. Makezine has a quick tutorial for the Notes package : MAKE ebooks for your iPod guide!, June, 2005. Apple publishes a iPod Note Reader User Guide (Developer registration required.).
Posted by sjc at 8:49 AM | Comments (0)