Golden Spiders – you decide

The Golden Spider awards are held annually to honour all that is good in the world of the Irish web. The shortlists and winners are a useful class exercise for my ebusiness students. I give them the various category lists and get them to evaluate the sites based on various criteria identified by various gurus as being important. It usually produces much fun and interesting insights.

Like all award ceremonies there is a “you decide” vote where Joe Public gets to have a say in the winner. This allows power to the people on the democratic web. It’s also a way for students to feel they are part of the real world, carrying out activities that have an influence (however small) on actual events. Its lends a spark of reality that class activities don’t always have.

The public vote category in the 2009 Spiders is number 17 “Best Social Networking & Community Website”.  The nominees are -

• www.IGOpeople.com is a relatively new social networking site. You can sign up as an individual (I), a group (G) or an organisation (O). Edward de Bono is a prestigious executive board member. You can ‘connect’ with like (or not-so-like) others or jump straight into conversation with others. It seems to be attracting a number of well known organisations and people conversing about a wide range of issues.
• www.irishabroad.com is a site aimed Irish expats, descendants and any person wishing to travel to Ireland. They claim to have a whopping 240,000 members. This looks a very practical site with plenty tips for those with a business or leisure interest in the county.  Not a bit of oirish in sight.
• www.kotalk.com I don’t know much about this one, it looks like it might be a younger persons Bebo.
• www.lonely.ie looks a dating site with a little life-coaching built-in
• www.nimble.ie I remember reading about the lauch of this site some time back. At the time I wondered how there could be room for yet another mainstream social networking site. But this one seems to have survived and grown, they claim to have 133,000 members.
• www.pix.ie the Irish flickr. I hear lots of good things about this site, and I get ribbed by certain people for doing the flickr thing and not the pixie thing. The problem is that I’m not a prolific enough photographer nor do I have the time to keep the 2 accounts up to date.
• www.politics.ie is an interesting discussion site with threads for all sorts of political goings on. It seems to be very popular with 9 comments in the last minute that I logged in. So you want to get your twopence worth on “Ireland’s a disaster, get out now while you can”, off you go.
• www.thumped.com is a popular music and entertainment site. If you want to post a review or announce a gig, or just see what’s a fun thing to do on a Friday night, then thumped is the place to go to.

As to which is the best, I think I’ll leave that to the students. The criteria are: website which has maintained your interest, enhanced your knowledge, opened up new communication avenues and had the biggest impact on your life”.  That’s an interesting set.  All are purely subjective which is normally a no-no but is the correct set of criteria for a public vote. Joe Public doesn’t feel the need to be a web expert. Instead they draw on their experience of using the sites. Collectively, the most popular site should stand out.

Having said that, I’m still not sure at all which I might vote for.

 

Good and bad policies

Every week seems to produce new ideas and thoughts regarding higher education. There’s nothing wrong idea generation and the consequent discussion and analysis per se. After all, the best ideas can come from non-judgemental brain-storming.

But, oh but, there are some strange ones. Here’s a sample from this past week -

• Uk  “University courses are to be tagged with their drop-out rates, graduates’ future earnings and the number of contact hours students can expect with tutors” becasue this is an “indication of quality” of the courses. Are these really quality indicators of the quality of a course? We all know that drop-out rates have a myriad of reasons which often have little to do with the course itself. Future earnings – so Higher Dips in Education are to be a low quality course? Contact hours – what’s the reasoning here – is more better or worse, from what starting point and in what way might more or less contact time help or hinder.  At what point does more spill over into too much such that students are prevented from acquiring independent-learner skills?  What in all this is the joy of learning a subject matter that appeals to something intrinsic in the student?  Where is the in-depth engagement with a subject matter that allows for enhanced enjoyment and fulfillment?
• “DNA swab for your job”. To take up a job at the University of Akron in the USA the board of trustees require you to submit to not only a criminal background check but you also are required to hand over a sample of your DNA. In my book, that’s just ridiculously invasive. Where is the right to privacy of one’s own person. One lecturer has resigned in protest. An interesting comment asks whether the board of trustees will be submitting their DNA samples.
• “State needs Catholic University”. The President of Mary “I” College of Education in Limerick is calling for a specifically catholic university in the country. I have never met and I know little about the president of this college so I’ll not say much apart from wondering what exactlya strong religious ethos can do for an educational institution.

Frtunately all is not quite so negative.  There are efforts to highlight the dangers of negative practices -

• IFUT are highlighting the dangers of market-based funding. Their seminar during the week seems to have many international guests saying lots of meaningful, interesting and important things on the theme. A quote from Mike Jennings (IFUT General Secretary): “Irish universities must not become the pawns of market forces and private speculators, who view education as just another source of profit and their students like customers in a supermarket”.  Last word goes to Jens Vraa-Jensen of Education International (EI): “The basic raison d’être for any private enterprise is to create profit for its owners. The purpose of a university is not profit but to spend money in the most appropriate way on teaching students and conducting research to develop the intellectual capacity of future generations and provide the society with new knowledge for future development and welfare”.   Well said!

And on that note, I’m off to spend the afternoon / evening working on my PhD.

 

Stress

Stress seems to be a ubiquitous terms these days. What is it?  Is it really on the increase? Why might it be rising?

Quoting from Irish Jobs a useful definition of stress comes from the late Dr Anthony Claire; stress is what we experience when there is a significant lack of balance between the resources we possess and the demands made on us”. What kinds of resources are these? Possibilities are time, money, quality friends, a better half, moral support, a strong code of personal ethics, ipods and laptops, the positive energy of doing a good deed or job, etc, etc.  What kinds of demands might be made of us?  Possibilities: pressure to work longer hours for less money, consequent pressure to work harder to justify the same ends, increased multi-tasking and multi-jobbing with the consequent squeeze on other aspects of life.

The result is being out-of-whack. The balance is off-kilter. The resources aren’t matching up with the demands placed on them.

This is arguably a typical output of recessionary times with financial crises all around us. It’s enhanced by news of resource squandering of public servants who are supposed to have citizens interests at heart.

What about our students?  Has their stress level gone up or down? On the surface of it, there’s no reason why it should be greater or lesser than in previous years. Courses don’t change dramatically from year to year. The volume and depth of coursework doesn’t change dramatically either. Yet, there is a report in todays Irish Times claiming that tcd is reporting a significant increase in students seeking mental health services.  It is possible that the mental health service is advertising its services more widely and so more students are availing of it. Also possible is that tcd is enrolling more students who are prone to “Asperger’s syndrome, attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and bipolar disorder”.

Yet, it would be fool-hardy to assume that students aren’t under pressure. Prospects for graduates are grim at the moment. The thought of spending several years of your young life acquiring an education and then not having a job to exploit it in must be a signficant stress-inducer.  Meanwhile, coursework has to be completed, classes attended, time spent in the library and exams prepared for and sat. Resources are being invested with no guarantee of a return as immediate as originally envisaged.

Is stress management really just a case of re-adjusting our mindsets? A good college education stands to any student regardless of whether the resulting job is the original one planned. It might happen that the resulting job is a better and more fulfilling one even if not found immediately. Maybe its a case of rolling with the punches and trying to put right the squandering of resources as we go so that a balance of sorts can be maintained.

If only there could be a fast way to do this!

 

Intelligence – females vs. males

Which is the superior gender? Are we gals better than guys or do they have the edge on us in some regards?

These questions come to the fore every now and again in various guises. A grey / white brain matter example comes from Science Daily. SD also tell us that men and women handle stress differently, with different parts of the brain coming into play to handle the stress. Men are more likely to have physiological reaction, turning to drink. Women take a more psychological turn.

The debate about intelligence differences between the genders is more complex. On the one hand, is it merely another variation on the brain differences?  On the other hand, is there a nature /nurture debate?   Is the fact that females are catching up on males in terms of state exam results on the nature or the nurture side?  Will we ever know?

Here’s a fun game to add to the debate – http://www.trivialpursuitexperiment.com/index.php. You tell the program whether you’re male or female. Your incorrect and correct answers to the trivial pursuit questions are then used to make up the overall total for males and females. At the moment, the obviously superior of the species are ahead!

It’s not perfect. Online, no-one know you are a dog. If you lie and say you are the other gender the computer is not going to know. Nor do we get a break-down on the male / female scores for the categories.

It’s good fun, a nice way to while away an hour on a rainy saturday afternoon. It doesn’t tell you the correct answer to questions you answer incorrectly though. If you don’t know what the first usage of genetic fingerprinting was, you’ll have to google (or Bing) the answer. The same applies for deciding which sport is called the “sweet science”, or the record time for solving the Rubix Cube. There is a counter so you can’t cheat and Google / Bing mid-question.

Happy trivial pursuing.

 

rEvolutionary Ideas cause a lengthy stir

On very rare occasions an idea or fact is unveiled that causes such an upset of the pre-existing status quo that it continues to have tongues wagging long after its originator has passed on. One such example is Charles Darwin’s On The Origin Of The Species. It’s celebrating its 150 year publication anniversary.  It was 200 years ago this year that Darwin himself was born.

There are lots of things Darwin in the news at the moment. Channel 4 is running a series celebrating the genius of Charles Darwin. There seems to be a comment on the great man’s works in many notable media publications:  the Guardian, a blog about a new book celebrating the anniversary, an Irish site on the topic, and coverage from the prestigious Scientific American.

The one that really caught my attention, however, is on the silver screen.  The interestingly-titled Creation tells of the personal struggle Darwin had in the run up to the writing of the famous book. We are so used to hearing about the theories, but we hear little about the person. This movie changes all that. We see the person behind the work.  We see the human who battled with his own religious upbringing and his wife’s more entrenched religiosity. But more than that, it captured Darwin the parent, Darwin the father.

His bond with his beloved daughter Annie was to prove instrumental in his decision to write the book. Despite her tender years and pre-mature death (she died aged only 10 years), she understood what her father’s work was about.  She was able to reflect it back to him with the clarity and simplicity of a child’s thinking. In one particular scene, Darwin took his (at the time) 4 children out into nature, to observe a fox catching rabbit dinner.   One daughter is upset at this barbaric side of nature, but Annie intervenes with a comment that it has to happen like that, it keeps the balance. Astounding.

Creation is a beautifully filmed piece of work. The cinematography is stunning. The beautiful way we hear about the life and demise of Jenny-the-Orangutang who died prematurely in conjunction with Annie is ….  I defy anyone to watch that and not shed a tear.

Equally impressive is the website.  It’s on my list of “sites whose design reflect their content” examples for my e-business students.  It’s also my new home page, popping up on my screen each time I load Firefox. I’m a country gal who is now living in the city. Like many such people, I miss the sound effect of the countryside. If I close my eyes I might just kid myself into thinking I’m back in good old rural Ireland again.

 

The Lisbon Thing

I’ve held back from writing / commenting on the upcoming Lisbon referendum up to now. It seems to stir up lots of strong emotion in people. Many of the Yes voters seem to be very intolerant of the No voters, and vice versa.  Seemingly perfectly good friends are falling out over their differing views on the treaty.

To bring a lighter touch to the event, I refer you to this – a view of what life might be like 25 years into the future if we chose to reject the Lisbon treaty again.  This is from TCD’s student newspaper Trinity News. A summary is as follows -

• The twenties were a boom period – Celtic Tiger part 2.
• We Irish folks need a work permit to work in Europe, given that our double rejection of the treaty caused us to be booted out of Europe.
• The EF (that’s the European Federation) is embracing third world war activities with Iran. Barroso and Ahmadineejad are at the forefront.  Paris has been bombed. The implication is that we are thankfully not part of this warfare having been turfed out because of the double Lisbon.
• The Labour Gov of 2018 abolished corporation tax (implication being that they could not have done this if we remained in Europe).
• Britain continue to be our most prominent trading partner, having also turned her back on Europe.
• When we got our Europe marching orders, we reacted by asking our foreign immigrants to leave. Result – Starbucks are now staffed by Deirdres
• We’re very open to all things American, given that France and Spain etc are off limits
• The Irish language is to the fore and a bilingual system is more real. Even the tourists are making the effort to speak it, the Americans, Japanese and Indians, that is. The continental Europeans don’t come here much anymore.
• College Green is pedestrianised and doubles as a fish-market. Fish is back on the market now that we dont have to obey European fishing quotas.  This has had a positive impact on the west coast as fishing villages are revitalised.
• Padraig Harrington has a street named after him (I’m not sure of the European angle on this one).
• Dame Street has multimedia billboards telling (literally) us all about commercial bits and bobs.
• TCD front arch has a metal detector. (Maybe this is a TCD thing, not a European one)
• Students are charged a 1£N (note that we dropped the Euro) in late fees each time they are late to class. (Do we have to wait 25 years to implement this one?)
• There’s a statue of Bertie Ahearn on Merrion Square.
• The authors first class of the morning – “What would life be like if Ireland had accepted the Lisbon Treaty that time back in 2009″.

The piece is imaginative and well-written. In fact, the entire newspaper has a professionalism that its student staff can be proud of. I might not agree with all the viewpoints expressed but all seem to be thoughtful and well-researched. There’s a reason this newspaper has won top student newspaper for 2 years running.

Here’s to 2 more!

 

Priorities

The Sunday Times have produced their annual University Guide with todays edition of the paper. It makes for interesting reading.

The ranking order of Universities and Institute of Technology in the country is given. NUI Galway are top. As usual, people are likely to quibble about the components of this ranking and how they are measured. For example, one element concerns the number of first and 2:1 honours given to graduates.  The idea being that the more of these there are, the better. The dumbing-down argument is never far away. I have a previous post related to this so I won’t go into it here. Suffice to say, that I consider the rankings to be an indicator only and recognise that an open mind needs to be kept.

What really grabbed my attention was the profiles of the various universities / colleges. Each institution profile asks a student therein to suggest a “Worst Feature” and a “Deal Clincher” for their institution. The student comments for each institution can be found in the file box on the right (I knew that box would be useful sooner or later).

 Did you notice what I noticed? 

Very very few of the comments concern academia. With only a small number of exceptions, practicalities like parking and social life dominate the list.  I’m reminded of the episode of Friends where Rachel says she switched her major from psychology because “there was never any parking beside the psychology building”. Cue audience laughter based on Rachel not being a serious college student.

Should we as lecturers be worried?  Are learning, skills acquisition or knowledge enhancement not as important to our students as we think they are?   Or are these things simply not at the top or bottom of the list for most of the student representatives here?   

Whatever the answer, it’s a cause of worry.  If student and lecturer priorities have drifted so far apart we have a problem.  We have to fundamentally question what is the purpose of a third level education and we need to do so with our students.

 

Students across the spectrum

This is the time of year when teachers and lecturers are faced with hundreds (more or less, depending on a whole range of factors) of new faces and names to acquaint themselves with. We wonder how best to engage our young and not so young changes, how to present material in an interesting way, how to get the brain cogs oiled and ready for new thoughts, ideas, facts, options, views, perspectives, terms and theories.  Hours spent on preparation are finally realised in the classroom.

Nothing kills this more than the half hearted “missed class the other day, but ah sure I didn’t miss anything” from the absent student.

Tom Weyman from Utoronto has put this cringing attitude to absenteeism into poetry:

Did I Miss Anything?

Question frequently asked by
students after missing a class

Nothing. When we realized you weren’t here
we sat with our hands folded on our desks
in silence, for the full two hours

Everything. I gave an exam worth
40 per cent of the grade for this term
and assigned some reading due today
on which I’m about to hand out a quiz
worth 50 per cent

Nothing. None of the content of this course
has value or meaning
Take as many days off as you like:
any activities we undertake as a class
I assure you will not matter either to you or me
and are without purpose

Everything. A few minutes after we began last time
a shaft of light descended and an angel
or other heavenly being appeared
and revealed to us what each woman or man must do
to attain divine wisdom in this life and
the hereafter
This is the last time the class will meet
before we disperse to bring this good news to all people
on earth

Nothing. When you are not present
how could something significant occur?

Everything. Contained in this classroom
is a microcosm of human existence
assembled for you to query and examine and ponder
This is not the only place such an opportunity has been
gathered

but it was one place

And you weren’t here

Ok, this takes both ends of the spectrum to extremes. Every class isn’t going to provide a sackful of inspired nuggets of heavenly proportions.  Similarly a class that is devoid of an meaning or usefulness at all is highly unlikely.

It’s a case of degree, more or less.

I look after 3 masters levels programs. As part of the taught element of the course progresses over the year I constantly remind and encourage students to be on the lookout for that spark, that interesting little idea or fact that will point them in the direction of a dissertation topic that they can base their masters qualification on.

This  spark will be different for different students. For example, student A who is attracted by the psychology of human online behaviour might not be taken by the finer points of financial accounting. Similarly, student B who is attracted by inter-cultural differences in managing new product launches might be bored to tears by the manufacturing logistics in the development of that new product.

But what if student A misses the classes on online buyer behaviour, and student B misses the classes on international differences on launching new products – because they figured ah but sure nothing interesting’ll happen in that class today so I might as well not bother going in.

The more classes missed, the more opportunities that are missed to query and examine and ponder. Why do students (or their parents) pay good money only to not bother taking up these opportunities that are being offered to them on a plate?

Of course, not all students fit this bracket. Some (thankfully) lap up every opportunity that comes their way.

I never cease to query and ponder why some students in a class are so divergent – some answering “everything” to the question while others answer “nothing”.

 

A new year

Happy new year to all working in education, and that includes the students.

Yes, it’s that time of the year when students and pupils return from various parts of the globe (or backgardens, bedrooms, summer schools, etc.) to begin or resume their studies.  There is the usual mix of trepidation and excitement as all involved face into the unknown.

Typically it is up to the teachers and lecturers to nurture the excitement and quell the trepidation. There are ways and means of doing this. It’s a case of finding the right technique for the right situation. Sounds easy, but it’s not.

US President Obama recently gave a back-to-school speech to primary school children. Given that Obama is an excellent speech giver and has inspired much of mass America purely by the power of speech, I figured I should listen to / read it. As I expected it is positive, upbeat, and inspiring. It gives a “you’re special, now go work hard and thereby show the world how special you are – your future is in your hands”. But there are always detractors – apparently, the speech was strongly criticised in some quarters as an excuse for pushing Obama political ideologies on young minds. Oh dear!

Teachers themselves are feeling the pressure too. We read in the newspapers about our large class sizes. As I have said before (and will undoubtedly say again), the larger the class the fewer teaching / learning opportunities that are available and the higher the workload for all involved. I would even suggest that this is the case at all levels; primary, secondary and third level education. My niece is in a primary school class of 37 pupils. Her teacher is now 4 days in to term. I can only wonder how her energy levels will survive.

Keeping the enthusiasm alive can be challenging even for the best of us. I have been advised that right from the outset I should let my students know that I want them to be open-minded, thinking-outside-the-box, questioning, thinking, analysing, etc. Is this a sure-fire way of terrifying those ingrained in the rote school of “learning”?  Should I ease them in more gradually?  In a semesterised 12-week program (with all the content delivered before the Christmas break) is there sufficient time for a gradual ease-in?

Students coming from the other side of the world to study here most certainly need this easing in space. Many have never been to this corner of the globe before. They need time to settle into our customs and habits and to figure out how to manage daily living here.  I imagine that I would feel more than a little trepidation if I got off a plane in China, India or elsewhere to spend a year of my life there. How long would I need to settle in?   It’s a regret I have from my own undergraduate days. Why, oh why, did I not get involved in one or other of the exchange programs with partner universities on offer?

Last thought goes to parents. Spare a thought for the many anxious parents wondering how their little one will enjoy their first day in primary / secondary / third level education. Sometimes the parents are more anxious than their offspring.

 

What’s age got to do with it?

It seems rather a lot, given the huge reaction the Dutch authorities have to prevent 13-year old Laura Dekker’s quest to sail solo around the world.

We all know that kids mature at different ages. Some are high achieving while still very young. A good example is 15-year old tennis player Laura Robson, winner of junior Wimbledon as age 14, runner of the Junior Australian championship at age 15. Others take longer, a lot longer in some cases, to figure out who they are and what they would like to achieve. Some drift through life without ever achieving anything momentous at all.

Are there limits as to what someone should or could achieve by a particular age? Apparently we are at our physical peak in our mid-20s. Thus, is mid-teens a good age to start making a name for oneself in ones chosen sport? Singers say their voices peak in the 40s, and they are often well into their 20s before they feel their voice is anyway worthy of a top stage. Are there / should there be rules for different domains of expertise?

Taking a different angle, it seems to me that society has very strong views on teens excelling in an adult world. We seem to have this idea that teens need to be protected from much of the negative aspects of the world. In many cases, that seems logical. After all, the average teen has little world experience and many have not the required cognitive and social sophistication to cope with life’s more unusual obstacles.  In the Western we world have evolved teenagehood as a protected space where parents gradually let go of their offspring, hoping they are moving fast enough so that the youngster develops sufficient maturity and coping skills but not so so slowly the teen feels stifled.

The age of 18 is considered adulthood and our young folks are considered capable of getting on in the adult world on their 18th birthday. Why age 18? I’m sure we all know or have known 18-year olds who are well able to make their way in the world and others who have some or a lot more learning to do.  Some teens amaze and humble us with their apparent maturity.  Some grapple badly with the horrors of sexting, cyber-bullying, the leaving cert points race, etc, others are able to take these in their stride.  Perhaps, we should put more effort into researching why there is such a gap between these 2 groups.

Having said all that, what is your view on Laura Dekker’s quest to sail the world solo as a 13 year old? If BBC’s Have-your-say is anything to go by, it seems we have strong opinions indeed. Some of the comments (from over 1000) I found interesting are as follows -

• What on earth are her parents thinking of
• Stepping outside the accepted social structure because you have become independent faster than your peers, you are regarded as odd and in this instance, are taken into state custody. ae we getting a little mixed up?
• I hope the girl sues them when she is older for denying her this opportunity
• Perhaps if Laura survives this trip and one day comes to her senses, she may decide to sue her parents for denying her the opportunity to mix with other teenagers at a crucial age, as well as missing so much education that she cannot go to university or get a job
• Why is there such a rush to force adulthood onto children?
• a child of 13 is not sufficiently developed mentally, physically or psychologically to undertake such an endeavor entirely alone
• 13 year old boy can be a father, 15 year old lady can be a mother? But they are stopped form sailing around the world
• Nanny should allow her to do the trip if she is fit!
• Sending a 13-yr old girl to sea on solo is tantamount to a death sentence.
• maturity, experience,knowledge,support systems,mental abilities in stressful times, physical abilities when stressed or challenged, emotional abilities and capabilities to cope.All these factors need consideration and not just age.
• The government has too much say in what is absolutely none of their business.
• My dad had to leave school at 14 to earn a crust as the family was short of cash, where were the do-gooders then.
• what sort of psychological impact will stopping her do this create, resentment and anger for sure, rather than the feeling of achievement that allowing her to attempt it will create even if she failed.
• What next? Child wants to dye hair red and get nose pierced, so gets taken into state care… Child wants to cook own dinner on hot stove, so gets taken into state care… If the state no longer agrees with one parenting methodology, does that mean the children will be taken into care???
• Does anyone really sail solo apart from being the only one in the boat. There is always someone following and state-of-the-art communications.
• Each case is different. Some children are mature beyond their age whereas some are immature for their age.
• Is there any activity more utterly pointless than sailing solo around the world?
• Children need to experience life in all it’s facets and if one is younger than the norm so be it, that is not an excuse for heavy-handed authorities to step in
• At 13 she should be at home studying algebra, not sailing the high seas.
• She is 13 years old. Is her life going to be so utterly ruined and violated if she has to wait until she finishes school?

It seems there are as many viewpoints as there are commentators. Are they all valid? Do you agree with them?  Could you have done this trip when you were 13? Were you born on a boat, did you spend the first 4 years of your life sailing, did you sail solo at age 6, spend the last 3 years preparing for a round-the-world sail, already have crossed the North Sea solo?

As a sailor, Laura is clearly not a typical 13 year old. She is far beyond that.