Prepare for Mind Control

Now who's the nerd?

I was engaged in an intense debate the other day as to whether of not people who play D&D are more or less nerdy than those people who play fantasy football. The person with whom I was debating this was a jock sports fanatic who regularly beat up nerds for sport in high school. Or at least that's how I imagine it happening. Anyway my contention was that D&D was actually less nerdy than fantasy football, because it all comes from your imagination. I think it's way more nerdy to fantasize about things that exist, and not only fantasize, but have an organized draft day, bet on it, watch cable shows about it, and follow it on the internet. It's as highly organized as D&D. Management of time and resources is paramount. It all boils down to this.

The content management system (CMS) is nearly ubiquitous with most of the web applications that I use the most. Google is essentially one large CMS, with several valuable applications all connected by one single sign-on portal. I can't tell you how much easier it is to sign on once and be connected to all of these services. This is especially valuable at my place of employment, which uses Google Docs, Gmail, Picasa and several other applications collaboratively.

This same employer is also struggling with system-wide growing pains by not utilizing a consistent CMS. This of course provides the benefit of a single sign-on portal. As it stands now, there are just too many interests that need to communicate that are not able to because they lack the ability to access the content behind the portal. When one hand does not know what the other is doing, it can cause problems. This would also benefit the end-users who need to access the front-end content. Currently this employer is exploring both Drupal and Joomla as an open-source solution to some of the woes listed above.

So in reality, the ability to organize and manage content, be it football stats or hitpoints, is what ultimately unites all nerds.

Having Fun with Tag CLouds

Are you for goodness? Or badness?

Is he standing right behind me? Dang...

Once in a while someone comes up with a truly great idea. I'm not talking about salt and vinegar potato chips or Netflix; but rather great ideas that have the ability to positively affect changes in the lives of people. These can range from the individual level to the group level and even span entire populations, but rarely do the ideas have the power to stretch themselves across the broad spectrum of human influence. Open Courseware (OCW) is one of those great ideas. Curtis Bonk gets around to telling us this through his seemingly effortless ability to blend storytelling with something relevant. OCW falls under the larger umbrella of Open Educational Resources (OER) and includes not only learning content, such as courses and course materials, content modules, learning objects, collections, and journals, but also tools such as that aid in the creation, delivery, and development of open content. It can also include implementation resources such as intellectual property licenses and guided design-principles


My real point of focus is the ocwconsortium.org website, the magical portal to higher education resources as provided by such luminous institutions as MIT and Johns Hopkins. I had a really enjoyable time searching for content that I would be interested as a matter of professional development, and managed to find at least two excellent and pertinent courses through not only MIT but also NJIT (New Jersey Institute of Technology) that will probably prove to be valuable in addition to my Lehigh education and the certificate program through the University of Wisconsin.


Another great resource that I have been aware of for some time is the Virginia Open Education Foundation, who are striving to bring curriculum and open education content to students in the state of Virginia. Not only this an ambitious and forward-thinking venture, but the development and usage of the FlexBook open content text book system by VA is truly remarkable. Imagine the ability to pick and choose content (State and National standards-approved) and creat your own textbook that is tailored to your needs as an instructor. Please check out CK12.org to see it in action. Amazing and inspirational.


Here is a screenshot of my open course on the Morris Canal, conducted for 3 (angry, merciless) students recently:

Wellll?! We're Waiting!

Believe 'dat

Statistics are misleading. I've often heard the statistic quoted that says adults with a Master's degree increase their earning capacity by 25% over someone with a Bachelor's, and those with a Bachelor's earn $1 million more in their lifetime than those with just a HS diploma. And imagine not having a HS diploma! Well, I have 2 Master's degrees, no permanent employment since 2009 and nearly $100,000 in student loans. By contrast my sister has a BA from a small state college and is an editor at a Dutch medical publisher, earns way over 6 figures and travels to Europe twice a year. Plus she has a kid, and no debt. So you see, you can't always believe what you read about education statistics.

Yes, I understand the spirit of such stats, but it doesn't tell you anything about the people who are the subject of these studies. Education doesn't always equal success, at least not in the American sense of success as measured by wealth. But it can be measured in personal satisfaction, and I consider myself to be part of the latter group. Most of this is based upon my ability to empower myself through education. Everyone deserves a shot at being in that latter group.

When I read about all of the depressing educational statistics listed under the "Bob and Tom Fingertipping Presidents" portion of the chapter, I have to remind myself that this says nothing about the motivation of the individual. Often it's easy to just blame the disenfranchised as lazy and shiftless, and rejecting education. But at least on that last point they would be right, they are rejecting education. Why? All sorts of reasons: it isn't engaging, contextual or meaningful. A lack of empowerment or control over their own destiny. These are real-world problems that should never exist in school, the one place that should provide these opportunities. And yet the stats tell another story entirely.

The charter school is interesting perhaps only because it seems so limited in scope; it basicaly focuses on showing students how to access information. And information is power. Despite this narrow objective the school has produced amazing results if stats are to be believed. The need is clear, as evidenced by the feel-good twist at the end of the section involving the President of India. The bottom line is that equitable access to education should at least be empowering, and that empowerment can lead to a measure of personal success, something that cannot be borne out by statistics.

It has a pool and a pond. The pond is good for you.

British girls keepin' it real

I was speaking with a friend recently about micro-reactions and the ability to read these reactions on the faces of people to tell if they are being truthful when presented with a series of questions. It's a newly-developed method of sooth-saying, an emerging field of study if not exactly a science, whose ultimate goal is to be used in a variety of situations where testing the validity of, say, eyewitness testimony is paramount. It's other natural use would be to perhaps aid in proving evidence for the guilt or innocence of an individual facing incarceration. Whether it gains acceptance or not is largely a matter of how accurate it is, but probably what types of situations in which it proves most useful. For example, is it used in legitimate crime investigation, and has it borne results? Then the odds that it gains some measure of credibility increases. If it is used, for example, to test whether or not someone truthfully reports seeing Bigfoot? Hmmmm...

Well, it may have just impugned itself as more CSI quackery. As it turns out, it's not really important as to whether or not the subjects were lying about seeing Bigfoot, it's more to the point that they believed what they saw. Because of this finding, the study of micro-reactions has in a way double-whammied itself; not only is it unable to tell if someone is lying, but it only has proven useful in a situation where no one knows the truth anyway. There are just no facts to support the hypothesis. So the whole thing falls apart.

Curtis Bonk is all about the Open Educational Resource (OER). Like micro-reactions, OER is emerging and thus far has not, at least in widespread institutionalized education, proven itself to be of much interest or use. But it is generating interest among those who view the ability to construct one's own knowledge in an equitable, accessible and highly dynamic way. It has the ability, if used properly and thoughtfully, to empower both the learner and the educator. It has it's drawbacks: free information is not always good information;  tools however useful, are often misused; and users of these new tools tend to be fickle. And so the torch of the OER tends to fall upon the diligent and forward-thinking, lest the OER become glacially institutionalized itself.

So it begs the question is not whether or not the OER is actually useful, but whether or not the user believes in the ability of the OER to be useful. Does that mean that the tool is effective? Maybe not. As in the case of the micro-reaction and Bigfoot, it is largely dependent upon the perceptions of the user. Only when true evidence of the usefulness of the tool is presented will it be widely accepted, no matter how innovative it is.

Be the Ball

Here is the canned version:

I have been learning about and using technology for practical purposes for many years at a professional level.  As an Architectural Historian I instructed laypeople, consultants and officials in the most efficient and concise way to document historic sites. I was also involved with public outreach publications as related to historic resources throughout New Jersey. This utilized several types of publication software in an effort to inform and instruct school-aged children in the activities and techniques used by archaeologists throughout the state. I was also charged with the design and fabrication of Historic Interpretive Displays for the Trenton, NJ waterfront, which called for the creative use of cutting-edge layout software to enlighten visitors as to the history of the Trenton waterfront in an appealing and informative way.

As an Architectural Materials Conservator, I participated in the implementation of new technology to aid in the Preservation of historic architectural resources throughout the United States. The end results are a dissemination of the information to fellow conservators through a practical report as an educational tool for other stewards of large scale buildings.

The integration of technology with education has always been at the core of what I have accomplished at the professional level, whether it is through the creative use of technology to tell the story of a historic waterfront, or at a highly technical level to protect an historic treasure. The culmination of these experiences has been the completion of the TLT MS program...and hopefully something meaningful that will unite all facets of my skills into something focused and exciting. Currently I am employed part-time by DeSales University as an instructional technologist.