August 26, 2005
CAO Acceptance Readings
THE FIRST ROUND of CAO acceptances have filtered into Tipperary Institute and it looks like 22 new faces will meet me for Media Writing. I'm getting the inside scoop on these first year students by paging through Managing Generation Y by Carolyn Martin and Bruce Tulgan. They say that members of Generation Y "want to be 'paid volunteers' - to join organizations not because they have to, but because they really want to, because there's something significant happening there." Gen-Yers may share their lecturers' passion for multimedia but with a twist. They don't do things exactly the way they're told. They don't expect a long apprenticeship doing on the way up the payscale.
Some things I have noted about this slice of the Irish population:
- They have high self-esteem and don't intimidate easily. In fact, they're as likely to push back if they sense pressure from the front of the class. Either that, or they work around the teacher.
- Their second level teachers offered positive reinforcement. They didn't have to return to base and start again like me.
- No teacher in the past five years gave them a dig to correct their behaviour. I can still feel the ruler wielded by Sister Mary Mummy. Instead, my freshers will try to report bullying if they sense stress during continuous assessment production sessions.
- Several of the incoming class have dual-career parents who completed their kids' CAO forms, sorted their accommodation and will do their laundry if they return with dirty clothes on weekends.
- They want to be successful.
- They demand quality as consumers and see themselves as clients, more than as students.
- They know and wear brands.
- They do not fear technology. They relish the opportunity to make gadgets do their work.
- Text messaging, VCR tapes and microwave ovens have reduced the waiting time in their lives.
- They can define the parameters of a well-balanced work-life ratio. They know at least six families who lived through periods of unemployment.
- They know how to invoke passive aggression.
My tactic is to motivate by mentoring. I assign overhead tasks and ask them to book one-on-one time with me. They quickly realise that if they don't listen to lectures or dutifully observe demos, they will be completing more of their projects with less assistance.
To manage Gen-Y students, I've read a few books and reviewed the Beloit College mindset list which describes the cultural realities of each year's incoming freshman class. The Irish cultural realities are a little different but aligned closely in the realm of entertaiment and career expectations.
Jill Geisler -- "Boomer Bosses, Meet Your New Employees"
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August 26, 2005 in Staff Items | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
August 17, 2005
Get Broadband Study Buddies
I THOUGHT THAT I was among a small minority when it comes to using Skype and Instant Messaging in a study environment. Every time I sit down at my work desk, I click through a half-dozen IM texts and about the same number of Skype voice mails. Nearly every one of them deal with third level questions or queries about possible research projects. Less than a hundred miles away, there's a hive of study buddies using Skype, according to Robin Blanford.
I have been making great use of tele-study. which i don't know if the word exists, but it does now. Basically I'm here studying, and I have the laptop opened out flat and leant against the wall so its like a tablet pc infront of me, and I've Skype on to Daragh who's doing the same exam as me. Which means effectivly we may as well be sitting back to back in the same room, hands free chat, free, clear, and excellent.
< ahref=http://www.bytesurgery.com/gearedup/2005/08/study-buddy-on-skype.html>r1g2b3 -- "Study Buddy on Skype"
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August 17, 2005 in Staff Items | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 14, 2005
Essential Reading
AD AGE -- We need to get college students to read more because Irish reading habits parallel those documented in the States. Time spent reading appears to be diminishing, with older people (age 75+) reading about 72 minutes per day while teens spend just seven minutes a day with written material (not counting homework or time on the Internet).
Young adults and the middle-aged didn't do much better: those age 20-34 read 10 minutes a day and 45- to 54-year-olds read 19 minutes. Meanwhile, there appears to be plenty of time for TV: college-educated workers spend about 1.4 hours a day in front of the tube, while unemployed high school graduates watch four hours a day.
NewsScan -- "Where Does The Time Go?"
AdAge
May 14, 2005 in Staff Items | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack
January 18, 2005
Testing digital literacy
NYT -- The Educational Testing Service has announced a new battery of tests designed to test ICT literacy. This foray into the specialist area could conceivably avail an international mechanism for schools from around the world to measure the ability of graduates to perform in the connected work place.
The test evaluates such skills as
- Knowing where and how to find information
- interpreting, sorting, evaluating, manipulating and repackaging information in dozens of forms from thousands of sources
- Having a fundamental understanding of the legal and ethical uses of digital materials
- Critical thinking
We test third level students in their critical thinking skills as well as in their hands-on proficiency. In a crowded internet enivronment where no one knows you might be a dog, it's critical to insist upon core skills before graduating a multimedia student from year to year. Our position at Tipperary Institute follows from the observation of Colm O'Riordan who says, "Try throwing a stone down Grafton Street without hitting someone who claims to be able to design web pages". Only a demonstration of portfolio skills alongside a solid client list guarantees your work a professional status.
Tom Zeller -- "Measuring Literacy i a world gone digital"
Robert Reich -- Work of Nations: Preparing Ourselves for 21st Century Capitalism ISBN 0679736158
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January 18, 2005 in Staff Items | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
November 29, 2004
Education Ireland
DUBLIN -- The Minister for Education and Science, Mary Hanafin, announced plans to establish a new statutory body, Education Ireland, to help attract overseas students. The window of opportunity is wide open for this kind of venture since the United States is punting students back across the ocean.
There is significant scope for expansion of the third level education uptake in Ireland. An inter-departmental report says that up to 15% of the projected 160,000 students in third-level education could come from overseas by 2010. The first year cohort in Tipperary Institute's multimedia degree programme exceeds that mark already.
Department of Education and Science -- "Internationalisation of Irish Educational Services"
Inside Info: Dublin Sucks!
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November 29, 2004 in Staff Items | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
November 14, 2004
Robodump
TRIGGUR -- In Tipperary Institute, we have Robocode, a competition to the end for electronic tanks that battle on screen. Inside one of the toilets, we might have Robodump, an MP3 loop filled with creative sounds normally heard and quickly repressed. It challenges even the most open-minded advocates of performance art. The demented Kevin Kelm stuck it into his men's room and reports that "the office was abuzz all morning with gossip about the guy in the bathroom. Several people theorized it was the CFO. The janitor commented to someone in the hallway that he wanted to clean the restroom but 'this guy's been in there all morning.'"
November 14, 2004 in Staff Items | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
November 08, 2004
M is for Moodle Learning
THE FEATURE -- Howard Rheingold writes about a generation "immersed in cyberculture" when entering school, "mobile and wirelessly connected". Bryan Alexander from Middlebury College in Vermont calls them "nomadic swarms". I wonder if those attributes can be applied to incoming multimedia degree students at Tipperary Institute.
If so, the new multimedia students would lack any instructions on how to use the online backchannel of Moodle. I think the Tipperary students get plenty of advice on leveraging Moodle because I see their handiwork online, sometimes during late-night sessions from home. This is much the same as cracking open a book and writing notes in response to an overhead question.
Alexander thinks "blogs and wikis were yesterday. Moblogging is today." I cannot fathom how the "swarm learning" he describes is pedagogically sound. Nor can I see how an interested learner can ping his way around the edges of an internet library and receive reinforcement for browsing at the fringes of knowledge.
Developing an understanding for the written word means reflecting on it from various directions. A new student risks falling into a swamp of unrelated (but interesting) material if left to forage alone.
Effective swarm learning needs the rigor of a queen bee and the focus of the worker bees. Any other approach invites academic shortfalls.
Howard Rheingold -- "M-Learning 4 Generation Txt?"
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November 8, 2004 in Staff Items | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
November 01, 2004
Online education services empower students
MOODLE -- At its core, our online open media programme is underpiinned by a decidedly student-entric ethos. Central to this ethos is the self-service ideal--the notion that online education enables more convenient, user-friendly interaction with educational materials.
In Tipperary Institute, we use Moodle as a central point for student learning and instructor feedback. Using a web browser and an internet connection, students can interact with a sophisticated learning environment that is open for 24x7 service. As a Moodle instructor, I can see student interactions late at night, well past the time the lights turn off in the classroom To me, this indicates students are continuing their learning inside the electronic classroom.
For this to be a valid pathway to knowledge, the online classroom must be dependable. It must be grounded on IT infrastructure that is reliable and robust. In tech-speak, that's something with reliability of "four nines" or higher. That kind of serviced platform comes at a cost.
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November 1, 2004 in Staff Items | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 25, 2004
Most common Moodle password
CLONMEL -- The most common password into Moodle, our virtual learning environment, is "password" and that will not surprise people who study human memory. On average, the human brain can hold only five to nine "random bits of information" in short-term memory. Considering the brain's limited capacity and the sheer number of secret names, codes, and words a person needs to remember in this password-protected age, it's no surprise that the most common password is simply "password."
Besides serving as an easy-to-remember code for less-creative computer users, "password" is often used as the default password for many web sites and programs, making it extremely common and not at all secure. In other words, "password" is a bad password.
According to Ask Yahoo, other perennial favorites include "God," "sex," "money," and "love." Passwords based on the names or birthdays of partners, children, or pets are also quite common. Here's a pretty lengthy list of common passwords. Make sure to scan it and look for yours. If yours made the list, it's probably a good idea to change it.
Geodsoft -- common passwords
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October 25, 2004 in Staff Items | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 13, 2004
Not a beanbag
LOVESAC -- After watching the reaction of people walking through the latest Ernesto Neto exhibition in The Butler Gallery, I know giant beanbags are magnetic. We need one of these.
These giant bags are six feet across. Just the thing for a ready-made snug in the corner of the campus.
Check out the gallery of happy people swallowed up in Lovesacs.
Lovesac -- "over-sized living"
Karen Alexa -- "Product of the week"
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October 13, 2004 in Staff Items | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
