[1] Create and collect assignments: Classroom weaves together Google Docs, Drive and Gmail to help teachers create and collect assignments paperlessly.
To "create assignments", I make a pdf in my favorite pdf-maker, then post it on the course website (a plain HTML page with links), then tell the students about it.
To "collect assignments", I tell the students to email them to the course submission email -- shared between the lead instructor and the grader, if there is one.
They can quickly see who has or hasn't completed the work, and provide direct, real-time feedback to individual students.
I don't have the time to play policeman ("I see little Susie hasn't even started coding yet and the homework's due tomorrow"); if Susie wants my help she has my email.
[2] Improve class communications: Teachers can make announcements, ask questions and comment with students in real time—improving communication inside and outside of class.
I can best "improve class communications" by talking to the damn students. If they want to talk to me and I'm around, there's email or coming by my office; if I don't respond to either, then chances are I won't be reachable by google widget, either.
[3] Stay organized: Classroom automatically creates Drive folders for each assignment and for each student. Students can easily see what's due on their Assignments page.'
They can easily see what's due by visiting the course website and seeing "Homework 4 (link) -- due Monday, April 14".
Sorting things by assignment and by student is as simple as asking them to include their name and the assignment number in their submission, and running a perl script. For less technically inclined teachers, use whatever file-sifting features your OS of choice has.
I've seen highly-technologized courses run way off the rails, because there's a delusion that fancy computerization can take the place of talking to the students. It can't. The only instructional technology I really have a need for is:
1) The computers that we actually use (I teach computational physics)
2) A projector, so I can show them examples
3) A website, where they can download shit (pdf's of assignments and notes) and see what's due
4) Email
I so agree and you have my mod points. The only, and I mean only feature I actually like about these products is that I can see the grade distribution (as a student). For some reason I always like to see what the highest and lowest scores are, also, how much I beat the average by. The only blackboard one needs is an actual blackboard.
Orrrrrrrrrr, perhaps the investment needed to maintain gaming skills is no longer maintained due to, you know, growing up and having many more responsibilities?
Let's everybody calm down. Nearly all drama follows a very small set of dramatic structures. Just like there are one act plays, movies tend to follow a three act structure. That's all this book is.
Just because there is a structure does not mean it's all derivative. The idea is that the story lives on top of the structure. It isn't the structure itself. I see people citing movies like "Back to the Future" as examples that do not follow this structure. It does. Almost everything does. I took classes at one of these types of places for about two years. One thing we used to do was analyze films and try to find their structure. Amazingly, even the most seemingly unstructured movies followed the three act structure. There are exceptions, but they are rare. One notable exception might be the movie "I am curious yellow." But it's also highly experimental.
Or to put it another way: structure is the bones, story is the skin.
It's way easier to use --- I hate signing up for stuff, and it doesn't do any annoying spamy stuff like instapaper does. Check it: http://www.rekindle.it/
Seriously. However cool it may be, humans weren't meant to live this way... All packed on top of each other, so tightly that moving around one another is no longer possible to do with just a human brain... It's just badness, all the way down. In nature, overpopulation is naturally corrected for. Humans, ever so smart, are always finding ways to stick yet another finger in the proverbial dam.
It's a beautiful piece of art in that it is totally, and utterly terrifying.
Books are totally awesome but have one fatal design flaw: they tend to burn. Burning of the library of alexandria anyone?
Let's face it. If the shit goes down we're f*cked either way. As someone else pointed out -- something like a book is useless when you're freezing your ass off. And it will most likely end up being used to start fires. Why not enjoy the life we have?
The FDA approves drugs. The FCC approves electronics. Point is that widespread utilities like this should go through some sort of validation process. I'm not saying it should be apple, but it should be SOMEONE.
Basically, for applications, Flash becomes redundant since you need to use HTM for other devices anyway and HTML 5 supports everything important Flash does. For video, Flash becomes useless overhead, since you can just specify a codec already used in Flash which will save the user's processor and using Flash limits your audience to a subset of what just specifying a standard codec or two does.
Yes, except we are glossing over the part where you use a tool to "create" the application. Flash is a format AND an authoring tool. Unless Flash starts somehow exporting HTML 5, I don't really see this happening.
Come on. It's bad enough that we can't get simple block elements to render consistently in all browsers, and how we're going to try to build RIAs in "pure HTML?" Sure, it'll work for video content. Anything more complicated? Let me know how that turns out.
Flash's biggest strength is that the Flash player is responsible for running it and therefore is consistent across all platforms. If you ask me, this is a huge clusterfuck waiting to happen.
Couldn't agree more. The most valuable skill in a programmer is really the ability to quickly master new things---and to think creatively about them. Technology changes so far, fundamentals are very important, but not at the cost of not being able to adapt.
Dtrace? Terminal? The reality is that you can do SO MUCH MORE tinkering in OSX than you ever could. Ever used OS9? Black box magic. OSX, by comparison, is like a playground....
But seriously... how did "artists" survive before copyright? How did the renaissance get going? Who said that shitty writers had a human right to earn a fortune from derivative novels at the expense of draconian laws and computers that are locked down to prevent even the most basic control by their owner? Huh? Huh?
The MARKET determines what is shitty or not, not you. And guess what, "shitty" doesn't mean "not good." It means people don't want/like it. It could be the most brilliant thing in the world. You didn't like Harry Potter? So what? Millions of other people did. So yes, if millions of people are reading/enjoying my work, you'd better believe I have a right to make a living off of that.
Meaning, I could give a hoot how long a piece of code is or how long it took to write. What I *do* care about is shipping deliverables on time and within the quality standards. Nothing else matters.
Fully agree. I'm totally fine with the way things are right now. If DRM is the pill I must swallow to get more books on the Kindle than so be it. If you can believe it, publishing is even less (technologically) progressive than music. DRM is their pacifier.
Does anyone actually care about this? Of course I understand the "importance" of open formats, but guess what, just because a format is open doesn't mean it'll be readable 100 years from now... which is really the crux of the argument. Everything can read JPEG now, but what about in 100 years? The very basis of digital goods is that they are not as permanent. They are, however, much more convenient. Trade off, etc, etc, etc. Feel free to flame away, it's Christmas, Slashdot.;)
That's the term for the "person who runs around fixing windows boxes." At least in places I've worked where they differentiate. So being called "IT" isn't that bad!
Seriously, with the kind of traffic Hulu gets and the kind of top shelf advertisers they pull... They're not making money? Hardly. The PROBLEM is that they're not making ENOUGH money. They *own* most of the content they put up there, so we can't believe that they are paying ALL of that that in royalties.
Just another case of corporate greed. Nothing to see here. Move along now.
For example, an open-ended test that allows a programmer to solve a problem is good and proves the candidate can, you know, PROGRAM. A non-programming test (like multiple choice) that drills you on obscure topics of a language or requires that you have every design pattern known to man committed to memory---not so useful. In the end, a lot of BAD programmers do really well on those sorts of tests but fail to have a clue when asked to implement the simplest feature.
I don't know -- I thought it was a pretty simple question... But if you need me to break it down for you:
1) I said, sometimes movies can be quite expensive. And said expensive movies can sometimes be quite good.
2) I said, under the proposed "one dollar for a movie" model, it's simply not economically feasible to produce said expensive movies.
3) You said, "Or maybe, just maybe, they will stop overproducing special-effects-laden turds with hideously overpaid actors and dumping them on audiences who have little better else to choose from?"
4) I asked if you saw Star Trek or any of the Star Wars movies. Both of which cost many millions of dollars to make.
SO: If you support the said "micropayment/one dollar a movie" model, you therefore do not support the concept of a large, big budget studio movie, which you dismiss as "special-effects-laden turds." So, the problem is this: you cannot simultaneously support one thing in theory and have significantly different viewing habits. Well you can, we just call it something else: a hypocrite. Hence my question: if you've seen and enjoyed those movies, you've benefited from the current system of making movies. And you are supporting the end of them. Your main problem is a gross generalization of movies that are expensive to make. Pretty simple, really. However, I somehow think I am wasting my time trying to point this out to you.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm pretty sure teaching also takes effort and know-how too.
[1] Create and collect assignments: Classroom weaves together Google Docs, Drive and Gmail to help teachers create and collect assignments paperlessly.
To "create assignments", I make a pdf in my favorite pdf-maker, then post it on the course website (a plain HTML page with links), then tell the students about it. To "collect assignments", I tell the students to email them to the course submission email -- shared between the lead instructor and the grader, if there is one.
They can quickly see who has or hasn't completed the work, and provide direct, real-time feedback to individual students.
I don't have the time to play policeman ("I see little Susie hasn't even started coding yet and the homework's due tomorrow"); if Susie wants my help she has my email.
[2] Improve class communications: Teachers can make announcements, ask questions and comment with students in real time—improving communication inside and outside of class.
I can best "improve class communications" by talking to the damn students. If they want to talk to me and I'm around, there's email or coming by my office; if I don't respond to either, then chances are I won't be reachable by google widget, either.
[3] Stay organized: Classroom automatically creates Drive folders for each assignment and for each student. Students can easily see what's due on their Assignments page.'
They can easily see what's due by visiting the course website and seeing "Homework 4 (link) -- due Monday, April 14". Sorting things by assignment and by student is as simple as asking them to include their name and the assignment number in their submission, and running a perl script. For less technically inclined teachers, use whatever file-sifting features your OS of choice has.
I've seen highly-technologized courses run way off the rails, because there's a delusion that fancy computerization can take the place of talking to the students. It can't. The only instructional technology I really have a need for is:
1) The computers that we actually use (I teach computational physics) 2) A projector, so I can show them examples 3) A website, where they can download shit (pdf's of assignments and notes) and see what's due 4) Email
I so agree and you have my mod points. The only, and I mean only feature I actually like about these products is that I can see the grade distribution (as a student). For some reason I always like to see what the highest and lowest scores are, also, how much I beat the average by. The only blackboard one needs is an actual blackboard.
Orrrrrrrrrr, perhaps the investment needed to maintain gaming skills is no longer maintained due to, you know, growing up and having many more responsibilities?
Let's everybody calm down. Nearly all drama follows a very small set of dramatic structures. Just like there are one act plays, movies tend to follow a three act structure. That's all this book is.
Just because there is a structure does not mean it's all derivative. The idea is that the story lives on top of the structure. It isn't the structure itself. I see people citing movies like "Back to the Future" as examples that do not follow this structure. It does. Almost everything does. I took classes at one of these types of places for about two years. One thing we used to do was analyze films and try to find their structure. Amazingly, even the most seemingly unstructured movies followed the three act structure. There are exceptions, but they are rare. One notable exception might be the movie "I am curious yellow." But it's also highly experimental.
Or to put it another way: structure is the bones, story is the skin.
It's way easier to use --- I hate signing up for stuff, and it doesn't do any annoying spamy stuff like instapaper does. Check it: http://www.rekindle.it/
Seriously. However cool it may be, humans weren't meant to live this way... All packed on top of each other, so tightly that moving around one another is no longer possible to do with just a human brain... It's just badness, all the way down. In nature, overpopulation is naturally corrected for. Humans, ever so smart, are always finding ways to stick yet another finger in the proverbial dam. It's a beautiful piece of art in that it is totally, and utterly terrifying.
Books are totally awesome but have one fatal design flaw: they tend to burn. Burning of the library of alexandria anyone?
Let's face it. If the shit goes down we're f*cked either way. As someone else pointed out -- something like a book is useless when you're freezing your ass off. And it will most likely end up being used to start fires. Why not enjoy the life we have?
What do you think they store the source of the dictionary on? I doubt they retype the while dictionary when they do a new edition.
The FDA approves drugs. The FCC approves electronics. Point is that widespread utilities like this should go through some sort of validation process. I'm not saying it should be apple, but it should be SOMEONE.
Running any application on your phone from untrusted sources produces unexpected results. Clip at 11.
Why I drive drunk so well? I'm an ultra-mega-super tasker!
Basically, for applications, Flash becomes redundant since you need to use HTM for other devices anyway and HTML 5 supports everything important Flash does. For video, Flash becomes useless overhead, since you can just specify a codec already used in Flash which will save the user's processor and using Flash limits your audience to a subset of what just specifying a standard codec or two does.
Yes, except we are glossing over the part where you use a tool to "create" the application. Flash is a format AND an authoring tool. Unless Flash starts somehow exporting HTML 5, I don't really see this happening.
Come on. It's bad enough that we can't get simple block elements to render consistently in all browsers, and how we're going to try to build RIAs in "pure HTML?" Sure, it'll work for video content. Anything more complicated? Let me know how that turns out.
Flash's biggest strength is that the Flash player is responsible for running it and therefore is consistent across all platforms. If you ask me, this is a huge clusterfuck waiting to happen.
Or at least download a copy of Linux. There. Problem solved. Time for lunch.
Couldn't agree more. The most valuable skill in a programmer is really the ability to quickly master new things---and to think creatively about them. Technology changes so far, fundamentals are very important, but not at the cost of not being able to adapt.
Dtrace? Terminal? The reality is that you can do SO MUCH MORE tinkering in OSX than you ever could. Ever used OS9? Black box magic. OSX, by comparison, is like a playground....
But seriously... how did "artists" survive before copyright? How did the renaissance get going? Who said that shitty writers had a human right to earn a fortune from derivative novels at the expense of draconian laws and computers that are locked down to prevent even the most basic control by their owner? Huh? Huh?
The MARKET determines what is shitty or not, not you. And guess what, "shitty" doesn't mean "not good." It means people don't want/like it. It could be the most brilliant thing in the world. You didn't like Harry Potter? So what? Millions of other people did. So yes, if millions of people are reading/enjoying my work, you'd better believe I have a right to make a living off of that.
'nuff said.
Meaning, I could give a hoot how long a piece of code is or how long it took to write. What I *do* care about is shipping deliverables on time and within the quality standards. Nothing else matters.
Fully agree. I'm totally fine with the way things are right now. If DRM is the pill I must swallow to get more books on the Kindle than so be it. If you can believe it, publishing is even less (technologically) progressive than music. DRM is their pacifier.
Does anyone actually care about this? Of course I understand the "importance" of open formats, but guess what, just because a format is open doesn't mean it'll be readable 100 years from now... which is really the crux of the argument. Everything can read JPEG now, but what about in 100 years? The very basis of digital goods is that they are not as permanent. They are, however, much more convenient. Trade off, etc, etc, etc. Feel free to flame away, it's Christmas, Slashdot. ;)
That's the term for the "person who runs around fixing windows boxes." At least in places I've worked where they differentiate. So being called "IT" isn't that bad!
Seriously, with the kind of traffic Hulu gets and the kind of top shelf advertisers they pull... They're not making money? Hardly. The PROBLEM is that they're not making ENOUGH money. They *own* most of the content they put up there, so we can't believe that they are paying ALL of that that in royalties.
Just another case of corporate greed. Nothing to see here. Move along now.
For example, an open-ended test that allows a programmer to solve a problem is good and proves the candidate can, you know, PROGRAM. A non-programming test (like multiple choice) that drills you on obscure topics of a language or requires that you have every design pattern known to man committed to memory---not so useful. In the end, a lot of BAD programmers do really well on those sorts of tests but fail to have a clue when asked to implement the simplest feature.
...Jesus
I don't know -- I thought it was a pretty simple question... But if you need me to break it down for you:
1) I said, sometimes movies can be quite expensive. And said expensive movies can sometimes be quite good.
2) I said, under the proposed "one dollar for a movie" model, it's simply not economically feasible to produce said expensive movies.
3) You said, "Or maybe, just maybe, they will stop overproducing special-effects-laden turds with hideously overpaid actors and dumping them on audiences who have little better else to choose from?"
4) I asked if you saw Star Trek or any of the Star Wars movies. Both of which cost many millions of dollars to make.
SO: If you support the said "micropayment/one dollar a movie" model, you therefore do not support the concept of a large, big budget studio movie, which you dismiss as "special-effects-laden turds." So, the problem is this: you cannot simultaneously support one thing in theory and have significantly different viewing habits. Well you can, we just call it something else: a hypocrite. Hence my question: if you've seen and enjoyed those movies, you've benefited from the current system of making movies. And you are supporting the end of them. Your main problem is a gross generalization of movies that are expensive to make. Pretty simple, really. However, I somehow think I am wasting my time trying to point this out to you.