Come back, come back to Champaign Urbana. Ebert is showing 2001 at his Overlooked Film Fest on April 25 at the Virginia Theater. How is 2001 considered an overlooked film? As an earlier poster pointed out, the format is unusual. I believe that 2001 will be shown in the 70 mm Todd AO original, with Ebert's favorite projectionist on hand to oversee the event. Last year Ebert showed Oklahoma, which I believe was the first movie filmed in 70mm Todd AO with the inventor's son on hand to talk about his father's film invention.
Learn a little more at http://www.ebertfest.com/, and believe me, the fest is a lot of fun. You get to spend a whole weekend of watching great movies in the Virginia and call it charity work.
As a follow up to this, I'd like to say that IMO it isn't what technology you use (but do keep it simple)...it's the people you hire to run the show. I work as a coordinator for a distance ed program at the UofIllinois (Library and Info Science program called LEEP). We're pretty durn successful, and I think it has a lot to do with the fact that us two fulltime staff members have backgrounds in psychology and education. We really get to know our users and we both have experience in working with learners in stressful situations.
We've been able to take people with no computer experience and get them online and earning their master's. It takes a lot of time and patience, so be prepared if you're students need to ramp up.
Even if you are teaching a bunch of Slashdot types, I still maintain that investing in staff for support is crucial to success. No one wants to work with indifferent or mean people, and that goes double for students who are footing the bill.
That all being said, we also go for low bandwidth (since we are a global program and many of our students have older machines and slower dialups). IRC-based chat rooms, nntp-based bulletin board system. We also stream Real Audio (at 6.5 kbps...sounds grrreat!). We find that having synchronous class times as well as asynchronous work really helps students feel like they're part of the ol' learning environment. We also tend to emphasize some oncampus time (two weeks in the beginning of the program to get to know us and their classmates, then a day per class enrolled in during the semester).
me: Hey, Boss...I just read on/. that today's HAL's birtday. He was born right here in CU, you know. boss: Is that today? [lots of swearing] Why doesn't this office get the important memos? That's it! We're closed for the rest of this holiday. me: Gee, Thanks,/. ! *thumbs up* Seriously. I get the rest of today off. Now I just wish I'd read this earlier in the day instead of wasting my time with trivial matters like my email.
Small world, but I was just at a presentation by Mike Roberts today (Educause). He was pretty firm in his conviction that the board had to be international and was grumpy when he mentioned the few right wing conservative republicans in Congress who didn't see things this way. In fact, Roberts seemed pretty grumpy about a lot of things. I wouldn't want to be him.
Slashdot Mirror
Come back, come back to Champaign Urbana. Ebert is showing 2001 at his Overlooked Film Fest on April 25 at the Virginia Theater. How is 2001 considered an overlooked film? As an earlier poster pointed out, the format is unusual. I believe that 2001 will be shown in the 70 mm Todd AO original, with Ebert's favorite projectionist on hand to oversee the event. Last year Ebert showed Oklahoma, which I believe was the first movie filmed in 70mm Todd AO with the inventor's son on hand to talk about his father's film invention. Learn a little more at http://www.ebertfest.com/, and believe me, the fest is a lot of fun. You get to spend a whole weekend of watching great movies in the Virginia and call it charity work.
We've been able to take people with no computer experience and get them online and earning their master's. It takes a lot of time and patience, so be prepared if you're students need to ramp up.
Even if you are teaching a bunch of Slashdot types, I still maintain that investing in staff for support is crucial to success. No one wants to work with indifferent or mean people, and that goes double for students who are footing the bill.
That all being said, we also go for low bandwidth (since we are a global program and many of our students have older machines and slower dialups). IRC-based chat rooms, nntp-based bulletin board system. We also stream Real Audio (at 6.5 kbps...sounds grrreat!). We find that having synchronous class times as well as asynchronous work really helps students feel like they're part of the ol' learning environment. We also tend to emphasize some oncampus time (two weeks in the beginning of the program to get to know us and their classmates, then a day per class enrolled in during the semester).
me: Hey, Boss...I just read on /. that today's HAL's birtday. He was born right here in CU, you know. boss: Is that today? [lots of swearing] Why doesn't this office get the important memos? That's it! We're closed for the rest of this holiday. me: Gee, Thanks, /. ! *thumbs up* Seriously. I get the rest of today off. Now I just wish I'd read this earlier in the day instead of wasting my time with trivial matters like my email.
Small world, but I was just at a presentation by Mike Roberts today (Educause). He was pretty firm in his conviction that the board had to be international and was grumpy when he mentioned the few right wing conservative republicans in Congress who didn't see things this way. In fact, Roberts seemed pretty grumpy about a lot of things. I wouldn't want to be him.