Example: jonathan.swift@domain.tld comes in first, gets this username. Then we have Jonathan Andrew Swift who gets jonathan.a.swift@domain.tld. When Jonathan Abbott Smith comes in, he gets the loathed jonathan.x.swift@domain.tld
If the professors are requiring that the students log in to some part of the text book publishers website to actually view a homework assignment, then that is very much the professors fault.
Writing assignments is not that hard. And I say that having just finished preparing the tutorial and assignment for the class I'm teaching tomorrow.
People have to get angry. They have to understand they shouldn't be angry at the "hacktivists" but at the laws which require data collection and retention
This is the hard part.
When nurses strike over pay/conditions, people (generally) get annoyed at the nurses for risking peoples safety, not the goverment (or governing body) for not resolving the problems
When teachers strike over pay/conditions, people get annoyed at the teachers for disrupting the childrens education, not the government for not resolving the problems
When people protest in the steeet, people get angry at the protestors for the inconvenience, not for the government for not resolving the problems
So if you're in an area where children aren't "performing" due largely to the attitude of their parents, and your performance evaluation is bad, all the teachers should leave and go somewhere else?
What you're saying is that people who live in an area where most parents don't care about their childrens education (even if they themselves DO care about their childrens education) don't deserve to have a school.
Also, it means that a teacher who lives (works) in an area where parents are move involved in their childrens education will have to work "less hard" for a greater pay cheque than a teacher in a "worse" area would.
I'm generally ignorant to this issue, but I've always wondered how they would be persued...
I've had a few of those come to my household in the past, when I've been living in share houses. The notice would come to the person whos name was on the internet connection, but you might have 4 people using that internet connection, plus if its a wireless connection who is to say that those pesky neighbours haven't cracked your security?
What would the procedure be for them to actually follow up on an allegation of copyright infringement under such circumstances?
Outside of academia, you believe this to be an important skill why? I can program spreadsheets for some IBM mainframe thing, Excel, Lotus and whatever Corel called theirs... and you know what? Once out of corporate almost ten years ago, I haven't needed or wanted to do it one time. That's how important that knowledge is out in the world. You're inundated with technology, so you see it as the answer to whatever question. It's not. Besides, Excel costs $120, ledger books are far cheaper. So they don't need to know how to program Excel.
I don't know what "the real world" that you speak of is. I use spreadsheets more in my "real" life (eg: at home) more than I do at work. I might have a spreadsheet keeping track of what I plant in my vegetable garden, how it worked etc etc, keeping track of batches of homebrew. I could do all these things in a ledger book (which is more expensive than, say, openoffice by the way) but I can't re-order the data once its input. A spreadsheet program is not the same as a paper spreadsheet. This is kind of the point.
So, you're speaking of computer literacy at a college level, an utterly different thing than computer literacy for generic Shirley. And I know good and damned well that where you teach requires an intro computer course (see my rant elsewhere on this post), so why weren't they educated there before you got them? Failing of the uni, looks to me.
Yes, I'm talking about "college" level computer literacy. All that means is the computer literacy of people who are in the particular classes I happen to teach. These classes have an enourmous range of students in them, from various different backgrounds and various different levels of education. There are a lot of "generic Shileys" in these classes.
And there is no "intro computer course" required so I don't know where you think I teach (I am at an Australian university - maybe American universities have a different set of requirements?).
Now... Define "useful" in terms of day-to-day living in the real world, not academia. When the time comes that they need a spreadsheet for something, they figure it out. Probably with help and one of those specialized spreadsheets for home budget or whatever.
Or they use a ledger book.
Again, I use these generic software packages a lot more in my home life than at work. I will use Word/OpenOffice to write a letter, and to do that you need to know how to format it - and by format I mean more than changing the font to MS Comic Sans. At work I typically write most of my documents in LaTeX. At home I might use Excel/OpenOffice to create a spreadsheet. At work I write software to process data. The way I've used "useful" pretty much doesn't apply to (my area of) academia - and a vast majority of the students I'm teaching will not end up in academia, they will end up in this "real world" you keep talking about.
Maybe if you're a labourer or whatever and your job does not involve a computer then, sure, computer literacy probably isn't a problem. But if you have any job which does involve a computer (arguably most jobs) then computer literacy is a pretty big deal.
As I posted above, "knowing how to use ${PIECE_OF_SOFTWARE}" does not imply computer literacy, but computer literacy should imply "can probably work out how to use ${PIECE_OF_SOFTWARE}".
When we are teaching, especially in first year labs, Excel is a pretty handy way to tabulate and graph smaller amounts of data. However, when they have a short column (lets say 10 rows) of data and then the next column should be some function (eg: the square) of those values then a shocking number of those students will get out the calculator, square the number in the first row, write in the next column, repeat as required. At no point do they even think "hey, maybe there is a way to automate this task?". That is a problem, and it is a computer literacy problem. They see Excel (I continue to use this specific example but it is not specific to Excel, obviously) as being identical to a paper spreadsheet.
I don't use Excel for anything outside of teaching - but I know how to use it because it works in a sensible way. I write software (probably badly, see: various discussions on scientists writing code) in a small handful of languages to handle my data. Excel (or open/libre office equivilent since I'm running linux anyway) would be ridiculous to use.
Still, Excel is used by a lot of people in a lot of jobs... I very occassionally do some retail work on weekends (I'm a PhD student, extra money is pretty handy to have...). Last time I was there, my boss was working on the roster - which is done in Excel. She was manually updating each and every date and complaining about how long it takes. I sat down for maybe 10 minutes and set up the entire years roster (in terms of the formatting) with all the dates set up automatically. That spreadsheet can now be copy/pasted next year and so the formatting side of the roster for every year is now done. She was spending fucking ages doing this manually!
As another anecdote, a colleague of mine did some temp work in the administrative side of the university and, because he had a clue what he was doing, replaced like 3 people with an Excel spreadsheet. As is stated below, somewhere, being able to use Excel does not imply computer literacy, but computer literacy should imply being able to use Excel.
Is computer literacy for 14 year olds still an issue? Really?
I teach at a university. I've noticed this attitude from a lot of senior academics.
The assumption is that because almost everyone one of them owns an iphone and a laptop, that they are computer experts. However whenever we expect them to do anything work related on a computer (I am talking the most basic of Excel function) they collapse in a heap.
There is a very serious difference between being able to update your facebook status and being able to do something useful.
While I don't pretend to know much about the American system, I doubt that it is ALL students doing that. Further, I suspect that you will find that the problem starts with high school not sufficiently preparing students for university. However, since universities need students in order to exist, if the students applying are of lower standard, then the university is eventually going to lower its standards in order to keep its student numbers up.
There is some truth to this. I teach at an Australian university, and there are a number of people from specific cultural backgrounds who try this every year, because they come from somewhere that, what we regard as, plagiarism is acceptable.
I completely disagree with the "don't give them any chances, just send them packing". This is ludicrous. We catch a lot of these guys out (a lot of them are REALLY stupid and I actually feel embarrassed for them when we do catch them out) and, most of the time, pulling them up on it and explaining the rules to them sorts out the problem. You will always get a small minority who will try to work the system no matter what, but it is exactly that: a small minority.
It's easy to get indignant about it, but if they come from a culture which has different views on what plagiarism is at what point are they supposed to have this explained to them? It seems pretty unfair to let these students come into the university, pay their fees, and then throw them out when they break the rules that they were not aware of. Yes, you can find the university policy on academic misconduct etc if you dig through the website enough, but having the rules buried in some difficult-to-find legal document is hardly sufficient*
*Yes, I am aware that this is exactly how the "real world" works
Why not just all the user to put anything they want as a password, including spaces, commas, etc. Ban passwords under 5 characters, the top 500 easiest ones, anything matching personal info, etc. But otherwise all other things - and have a lockout policy after, say 5 bad attempts.
Removing the top 500 "easiest" or "most common" passwords just means that you will then be creating a new list of most common passwords...
Lockouts bother me because I know that at least once I've forgotten which password I use for that particular account, and ended up cycling through passwords to find it (I seem to recall that whatever account it was I had no reasonable way [at the time] to "reset" the password. I think it was a matter of "I would need to actually contact the foreign company")
Slashdot Mirror
https://theconversation.com/so...
It isn't heading towards the northern hemisphere, it's heading towards the north pole. There is plenty of "green" in the northern hemisphere already.
I see a career opportunity...
http://www22.verizon.com/jobs/
He gets jonathan.smith, obviously. But what happens when Jonathan Xavier Swift enrols?l
Example: jonathan.swift@domain.tld comes in first, gets this username. Then we have Jonathan Andrew Swift who gets jonathan.a.swift@domain.tld. When Jonathan Abbott Smith comes in, he gets the loathed jonathan.x.swift@domain.tld
What happens when Jonathan Xavier Smith enrolls?
If the professors are requiring that the students log in to some part of the text book publishers website to actually view a homework assignment, then that is very much the professors fault.
Writing assignments is not that hard. And I say that having just finished preparing the tutorial and assignment for the class I'm teaching tomorrow.
That's right. I would say that the "smartphone" is an innovation. The iPhone 4 is not.
People have to get angry. They have to understand they shouldn't be angry at the "hacktivists" but at the laws which require data collection and retention
This is the hard part.
When nurses strike over pay/conditions, people (generally) get annoyed at the nurses for risking peoples safety, not the goverment (or governing body) for not resolving the problems
When teachers strike over pay/conditions, people get annoyed at the teachers for disrupting the childrens education, not the government for not resolving the problems
When people protest in the steeet, people get angry at the protestors for the inconvenience, not for the government for not resolving the problems
Woosh!
(But a good post, otherwise...)
They agreed on the wording on the 4th. It was signed in August.
So if you're in an area where children aren't "performing" due largely to the attitude of their parents, and your performance evaluation is bad, all the teachers should leave and go somewhere else?
What you're saying is that people who live in an area where most parents don't care about their childrens education (even if they themselves DO care about their childrens education) don't deserve to have a school.
Also, it means that a teacher who lives (works) in an area where parents are move involved in their childrens education will have to work "less hard" for a greater pay cheque than a teacher in a "worse" area would.
Not everything should be run like a business.
I guess it's pretty lucky that they only let people with college degrees set up networks and use the internet, then.
I'm generally ignorant to this issue, but I've always wondered how they would be persued...
I've had a few of those come to my household in the past, when I've been living in share houses. The notice would come to the person whos name was on the internet connection, but you might have 4 people using that internet connection, plus if its a wireless connection who is to say that those pesky neighbours haven't cracked your security?
What would the procedure be for them to actually follow up on an allegation of copyright infringement under such circumstances?
Books and book chapters will likely contribute to "research output"
Oh man, I don't even know where to start...
Outside of academia, you believe this to be an important skill why? I can program spreadsheets for some IBM mainframe thing, Excel, Lotus and whatever Corel called theirs... and you know what? Once out of corporate almost ten years ago, I haven't needed or wanted to do it one time. That's how important that knowledge is out in the world. You're inundated with technology, so you see it as the answer to whatever question. It's not. Besides, Excel costs $120, ledger books are far cheaper. So they don't need to know how to program Excel.
I don't know what "the real world" that you speak of is. I use spreadsheets more in my "real" life (eg: at home) more than I do at work. I might have a spreadsheet keeping track of what I plant in my vegetable garden, how it worked etc etc, keeping track of batches of homebrew. I could do all these things in a ledger book (which is more expensive than, say, openoffice by the way) but I can't re-order the data once its input. A spreadsheet program is not the same as a paper spreadsheet. This is kind of the point.
So, you're speaking of computer literacy at a college level, an utterly different thing than computer literacy for generic Shirley. And I know good and damned well that where you teach requires an intro computer course (see my rant elsewhere on this post), so why weren't they educated there before you got them? Failing of the uni, looks to me.
Yes, I'm talking about "college" level computer literacy. All that means is the computer literacy of people who are in the particular classes I happen to teach. These classes have an enourmous range of students in them, from various different backgrounds and various different levels of education. There are a lot of "generic Shileys" in these classes.
And there is no "intro computer course" required so I don't know where you think I teach (I am at an Australian university - maybe American universities have a different set of requirements?).
Now... Define "useful" in terms of day-to-day living in the real world, not academia. When the time comes that they need a spreadsheet for something, they figure it out. Probably with help and one of those specialized spreadsheets for home budget or whatever. Or they use a ledger book.
Again, I use these generic software packages a lot more in my home life than at work. I will use Word/OpenOffice to write a letter, and to do that you need to know how to format it - and by format I mean more than changing the font to MS Comic Sans. At work I typically write most of my documents in LaTeX. At home I might use Excel/OpenOffice to create a spreadsheet. At work I write software to process data. The way I've used "useful" pretty much doesn't apply to (my area of) academia - and a vast majority of the students I'm teaching will not end up in academia, they will end up in this "real world" you keep talking about.
Maybe if you're a labourer or whatever and your job does not involve a computer then, sure, computer literacy probably isn't a problem. But if you have any job which does involve a computer (arguably most jobs) then computer literacy is a pretty big deal.
As I posted above, "knowing how to use ${PIECE_OF_SOFTWARE}" does not imply computer literacy, but computer literacy should imply "can probably work out how to use ${PIECE_OF_SOFTWARE}".
When we are teaching, especially in first year labs, Excel is a pretty handy way to tabulate and graph smaller amounts of data. However, when they have a short column (lets say 10 rows) of data and then the next column should be some function (eg: the square) of those values then a shocking number of those students will get out the calculator, square the number in the first row, write in the next column, repeat as required. At no point do they even think "hey, maybe there is a way to automate this task?". That is a problem, and it is a computer literacy problem. They see Excel (I continue to use this specific example but it is not specific to Excel, obviously) as being identical to a paper spreadsheet.
I don't use Excel for anything outside of teaching - but I know how to use it because it works in a sensible way. I write software (probably badly, see: various discussions on scientists writing code) in a small handful of languages to handle my data. Excel (or open/libre office equivilent since I'm running linux anyway) would be ridiculous to use.
Still, Excel is used by a lot of people in a lot of jobs... I very occassionally do some retail work on weekends (I'm a PhD student, extra money is pretty handy to have...). Last time I was there, my boss was working on the roster - which is done in Excel. She was manually updating each and every date and complaining about how long it takes. I sat down for maybe 10 minutes and set up the entire years roster (in terms of the formatting) with all the dates set up automatically. That spreadsheet can now be copy/pasted next year and so the formatting side of the roster for every year is now done. She was spending fucking ages doing this manually!
As another anecdote, a colleague of mine did some temp work in the administrative side of the university and, because he had a clue what he was doing, replaced like 3 people with an Excel spreadsheet. As is stated below, somewhere, being able to use Excel does not imply computer literacy, but computer literacy should imply being able to use Excel.
And by "them" I mean "17-20 year old students".
Is computer literacy for 14 year olds still an issue? Really?
I teach at a university. I've noticed this attitude from a lot of senior academics.
The assumption is that because almost everyone one of them owns an iphone and a laptop, that they are computer experts. However whenever we expect them to do anything work related on a computer (I am talking the most basic of Excel function) they collapse in a heap.
There is a very serious difference between being able to update your facebook status and being able to do something useful.
No benfit? What about all the terrorists that this thing is definitely going to stop?!?
While I don't pretend to know much about the American system, I doubt that it is ALL students doing that. Further, I suspect that you will find that the problem starts with high school not sufficiently preparing students for university. However, since universities need students in order to exist, if the students applying are of lower standard, then the university is eventually going to lower its standards in order to keep its student numbers up.
There is some truth to this. I teach at an Australian university, and there are a number of people from specific cultural backgrounds who try this every year, because they come from somewhere that, what we regard as, plagiarism is acceptable.
I completely disagree with the "don't give them any chances, just send them packing". This is ludicrous. We catch a lot of these guys out (a lot of them are REALLY stupid and I actually feel embarrassed for them when we do catch them out) and, most of the time, pulling them up on it and explaining the rules to them sorts out the problem. You will always get a small minority who will try to work the system no matter what, but it is exactly that: a small minority.
It's easy to get indignant about it, but if they come from a culture which has different views on what plagiarism is at what point are they supposed to have this explained to them? It seems pretty unfair to let these students come into the university, pay their fees, and then throw them out when they break the rules that they were not aware of. Yes, you can find the university policy on academic misconduct etc if you dig through the website enough, but having the rules buried in some difficult-to-find legal document is hardly sufficient*
*Yes, I am aware that this is exactly how the "real world" works
I truly believe Steve cared about his products beyond the profit
If this were true, Apple wouldn't be suing Samsung over who owns the rectangle.
Vterminal
Why not just all the user to put anything they want as a password, including spaces, commas, etc. Ban passwords under 5 characters, the top 500 easiest ones, anything matching personal info, etc. But otherwise all other things - and have a lockout policy after, say 5 bad attempts.
Removing the top 500 "easiest" or "most common" passwords just means that you will then be creating a new list of most common passwords...
Lockouts bother me because I know that at least once I've forgotten which password I use for that particular account, and ended up cycling through passwords to find it (I seem to recall that whatever account it was I had no reasonable way [at the time] to "reset" the password. I think it was a matter of "I would need to actually contact the foreign company")