1. I'm not saying that bad teachers didn't exist before. I'm saying that reliance on Powerpoint might just make it even worse.
Yeah, that's true. The same happens in programming languages: having the correct mental discipline leads to making less errors, no matter the programming language. And yet there are error-prone programming languages and they are used successfully.
2. Yes, you can get such a split on a blackboard too, but it's not "natural" so to speak.... With powerpoint it's just _natural_.... but more modest disconnects are actually commonplace.
I don't find this type of splits natural in either case. And if such disconnects happen, it's understandable that the student gets confused. What is not understandable is that the student passively waits for everything to be explained: he can ask questions in order to solve that disconnect, and the teacher should be happy to answer those questions. If the teacher can't answer relevant questions about the subject he is teaching, he's doing a bad job anyway.
3. Can Powerpoint be used well? Yes. But given that even professionals get it wrong all the time, I wouldn't set my hopes that high that every single teacher in some small underfunded school will get it 100% right, 100% of the time. I'm not saying that teachers are dumb, I'm saying that they're humans too. If it's possible -- and in fact, very, very easy -- to get something wrong, they'll do the same as any other profession: get it wrong often enough to matter.
Ok, so we agree it's the teachers who have to evaluate whether they can use the tool or not. If they actually can't (and still keep using it) then they are acting stupidly by insisting on using it without the required learning. But this happens all over the place: if I don't know how to use the tool correctly, it is to be expected that I will get bad results with it. Of course, it is easier to blame the tool, since it can't talk back.
Understanding of a lecture is not equal to memorizing it, and even the understanding is not guaranteed to occur instantly; some things you just circle and write on the margins "Where did this come from? Check with the book." instead of interrupting the lecture for everyone else. The teacher won't disappear in any case, so you can always ask separately, but in my experience it is plain impossible that nobody else in your class knows the answer to whatever confuses me.
Well, my POV differs, perhaps because I studied in a different environment. When there are 60+ students in a class, if one of them asks a question it is fairly certain there are at least another five who have the same doubt. So it will be more efficient to answer the question once while the subject is still fresh on the students' (and the teacher's) minds.
we're not made to read text off a slide and hear someone talk at the same time
Then there's no difference between a horribly text-packed slide while being explained and a blackboard being quickly filled with text being explained at the same time. As a student I have been subjected to both. I actually had to learn to ask defensively, in order to stop the teacher's flow and give me time to understand what had been said and written. Even at the risk of sounding repetitive, there is no fundamental difference between a slide and a blackboard: there is only a different speed of filling it with text (or diagrams, or number or whatever). Both are tools to be used correctly.
But a substitute for a blackboard it ain't. On a blackboard:
A) you're led to follow the current focus of attention, whatever word is currently being written. You don't just get a big word soup to get lost in and out of sync, you get to follow the cursor (hand with chalk) so to speak, at the same time you're hearing it. It works to reinforce what you hear, not to try to split your attention between two different texts.
Congratulations. Unfortunately, that isn't always true: I've seen such a split also happen while using blackboards, repeatedly.
B) the teacher is only human too, and he too would have trouble if he tried speaking one thing while writing something completely different. So there's a self-reinforcing mechanism to hold prevent it from becoming an attention-splitting device. As a subcase, if he takes some time to explain why he did something to a formula, he won't already start writing the next one.
Unless he explains each formula as he writes it and leaves the students little or no chance to ask if they got lost.
C) it enforces _some_ structure, because a blackboard is all the space you can get at a time. Which also cuts back on distractions like flipping back and forth between charts. Which is a distraction. Everytime you go "hmm, this one we don't need.. next... nope, this one we'll learn next week... let's see the next one... nah, we don't need that... next... aha, here we are..." that's not just wasted time. That's a bunch of people who've either tried to read it fast and the next minutes will be busy figuring that out instead of what you say next, or (probably most) whose attention and focus went right out the window while you did that little powerpoint dance.
Again, I disagree, a blackboard can be as structure-lacking as a slideshow: I have seen it. And jumping over slides shows that the teacher isn't working correctly. Blame the user, not the tool.
D) well, I hate to be mean to teachers (God knows they have a shitty job already), but it forces them to prepare that material instead of just borrowing someone's slides. And if they didn't know it too well, they'll at least recap it while they write it on the blackboard.
<sarcasm>Oh, perhaps now teachers don't "borrow" their courses' themes from pre-written books (at least in primary and secondary levels). That must explain why there are no coursebooks sales.</sarcasm> Seriously now, a lazy teacher having a slideshow or a blackboard to fill with text won't make much of a difference. I have had teachers reading from a book and hiding their doing so (I had the book, and I spent most of the course underlining the sentences the teacher read).
That's all pointless. Study pedagogy (or at least sit through a few boring meetings) before giving advice. Slide shows are just about the best way to get students to not engage the material.
Methinks you are being subjected to badly designed slideshows then. And yes, I have seen good and bad presentations. A good presentation will let you quickly grasp the concepts in each slide and listen to the explanation.
Technology has a very limited role in high school physics and mathematics pedagogy. As it happens, a quick blackboard pace is just slow enough to let students critically evaluate the material (with respect to note taking importance), formulate questions, and try to anticipate answers. Go any faster, and all you get is a class full of people fervently copying the slideshow verbatim.
Because you would never provide copies of the slideshow to your students with space for taking notes. Actually, I didn't even need that when I was a student: I got the slides, numbered each and wrote my comments on paper with slide references. A quick blackboard pace may mean having something like this: one person to copy what is written on the blackboard, another to copy what is being said, and a third person for Q&A (yes, the teacher wrote and spoke so fast that they had to cooperate to get the whole class written).
All this being said, I agree that hands-on material benefits from a slower pace. Not because the students will ask questions (they are too reluctant too look "stupid") but because you can ask questions to the students about how to proceed from the current point.
If a diagram can be convincingly explained once drawn, and it is complex enough to make using Photoshop or whatever worth the effort, by all means, use a predrawn diagram.
If you need a diagram (I wouldn't use Photoshop for that kind of work, but that's another debate altogether), you will benefit from not having to draw it once and again, if only because you are less likely to omit something.
I disagree. Someone (user or provider) won't be liable if that someone (user or provider, not just the user) voluntarily takes ah action in good faith to restrict access or availability to "indecent" material. As I read it, voluntarily excludes cases of negligence causing the material being unavailable or inaccessible. If the ISP willfully decided to restrict access to some "indecent" material, the user can't force the ISP to allow the user to access such material. And, unlike with antivirus, your choice of ISPs may be greatly restricted depending on where you live.
IANAL, either, so please let there be one to cast light on this issue.
Notice that none of the various legal uses of the CD include DISTRIBUTING the content.
I never talked about distribution. That's also regulated here in Spain too (even if they don't yet manage to pin P2P down:-)
According to Dictionary.com,...
Since it's a law that requires you to get authorization, I would say it is the law that is breached first.
Good question. But if the answer is yes, then you wouldn't be "bootlegging" it, thus the point is made either way.
Perhaps the important question is: is there a way to download, for example, a MP3 file that isn't considered distribution? In Spain there are several, fortunately:-)
1) Both MP3s and the GPL are protected by the same copyright laws.
That _might_ be true in some countries. At least in Spain software and music are different beasts, with different limitations.
2) Boot-legging MP3s and violating the terms of the GPL are both copyright violations.
Not true, AFAIK. First is copyright infringement, second one would be breach of contract. By the way, I never got an EULA with any CD/DVD I own. By the way, bootleg automatically implies breaking the law ("illicitly sold").
3) Neither violation is covered by "Fair Use" laws.
Fair Use still applies if I download an MP3 of a song I already have in a CD I bought, right? So your point wouldn't be correct.
Congratulations on getting so many +1, you have been overrated IMO.
I guess that you were actually typing that in a most stable emotional state, considering what you wrote and the fact that you aren't the original poster:-)
How the hell should I know why he brought up Mother Teresa?
Which is what I was asking, too. At least we agree in this.
Please keep your anger control issues to yourself. The whole comment is talking about the Dalai Lama. What's the sense of comparing with Mother Theresa, anyway?
Well, I think the problem lies in different files having different licensing options. It seems ath5k.h, ath5k_hw.c and ath5k_hw.h contain only the BSD license while ath5k_base.c, ath5k_base.h and ath5k_reg.h have both BSD and GPLv2 licenses inside. ath5k_regdom.c and ath5k_regdom.h have yet another license (GPL-compatible BSD license?).
As it is, some files could have the license text changed, others cannot, IMO. But IANAL.
Unfortunately, you seem to be wrong, if we are to trust what this user says on the thread: he cites Gaim acting the same way (among "other programs"). Then again, he's not too explicit.
If those mail are actually legit, they probably come from addresses that won't change often. You can whitelist them and keep going. Then again, I have only had false positives with a couple of senders, so YMMV.
By the way, if you just select all spam messages and move them back to your inbox, I fear you are doing a lousy job of detecting spam yourself;-)
Unless, of course, they have tiered pricing based upon bandwidth used. Or, to extend your analogy, it may be possible that those other channels are pay-per-view:)
The tiered pricing is a possible problem, I will agree. Then again, I doubt they would have a contract of this kind: as enterprises they want to have predictable costs, so they would most certainly buy flat-rate Internet access. Oh, and it's the first time I know of a pay-per-view channel being accessible by using the remote on the TV box (you don't mean you would play around with the TV provider's box, do you?).
If they leave their TV on after-hours, it's okay to stand in front of the store and watch it (and if I have a universal remote, maybe even changing the channel), isn't it? Unlike your cappuccino case, no entry is needed. When you look for an analogy, choose a correct one;-) In both my example and the hotspot's there is no automatic extra cost for the store.
...not so easy for an end user who switched to Linux.
Because a common end user switches easily between Windows versions and has no problems adapting, and he has no problems installing applications from one version into another. All of this without a "computer friend" hand-holding the process. And of course end users will mindlessly prance from one Linux distribution to the next without asking for help (well, some users I know are certainly mindless, but that's not the point).
Random numbers and reproducibility don't add up, IMO. If your simulation is good enough, having different random number sequences won't make a significative difference. As such, I can only find pseudoRNGs useful while testing for bugs, and marginally at that: a major flaw like getting out of whack because of a given series of numbers means something very wrong has happened while developing the simulation, and it's that process you should be checking, because checking the number sequence is just look at the symptoms.
If you need to repeat the random series, why don't you just store the numbers in a file? It may make sense even if you use a pseudo-generator, so you save processor time that would be used to recalculate the series again and again.
Because the people arguing against your privacy think beforehand (that's called prejudice, right?) that anything you have to hide (no matter if you just _want_ to hide it, because it would bring their point even lower) is inherently bad for society (so if I like watching gore movies but I don't want people to know I do I'm a menace).
Isn't language marvelous? Of course, my point is they are fundamentally wrong from the moment they narrow the issue so there's only one option (and not even valid, at that). That won't stop them, though (you can tell a bigot, but you can't tell him much).
Slashdot Mirror
Yeah, that's true. The same happens in programming languages: having the correct mental discipline leads to making less errors, no matter the programming language. And yet there are error-prone programming languages and they are used successfully.
2. Yes, you can get such a split on a blackboard too, but it's not "natural" so to speak. ... With powerpoint it's just _natural_. ... but more modest disconnects are actually commonplace.
I don't find this type of splits natural in either case. And if such disconnects happen, it's understandable that the student gets confused. What is not understandable is that the student passively waits for everything to be explained: he can ask questions in order to solve that disconnect, and the teacher should be happy to answer those questions. If the teacher can't answer relevant questions about the subject he is teaching, he's doing a bad job anyway.
3. Can Powerpoint be used well? Yes. But given that even professionals get it wrong all the time, I wouldn't set my hopes that high that every single teacher in some small underfunded school will get it 100% right, 100% of the time. I'm not saying that teachers are dumb, I'm saying that they're humans too. If it's possible -- and in fact, very, very easy -- to get something wrong, they'll do the same as any other profession: get it wrong often enough to matter.
Ok, so we agree it's the teachers who have to evaluate whether they can use the tool or not. If they actually can't (and still keep using it) then they are acting stupidly by insisting on using it without the required learning. But this happens all over the place: if I don't know how to use the tool correctly, it is to be expected that I will get bad results with it. Of course, it is easier to blame the tool, since it can't talk back.
Well, my POV differs, perhaps because I studied in a different environment. When there are 60+ students in a class, if one of them asks a question it is fairly certain there are at least another five who have the same doubt. So it will be more efficient to answer the question once while the subject is still fresh on the students' (and the teacher's) minds.
Then there's no difference between a horribly text-packed slide while being explained and a blackboard being quickly filled with text being explained at the same time. As a student I have been subjected to both. I actually had to learn to ask defensively, in order to stop the teacher's flow and give me time to understand what had been said and written. Even at the risk of sounding repetitive, there is no fundamental difference between a slide and a blackboard: there is only a different speed of filling it with text (or diagrams, or number or whatever). Both are tools to be used correctly.
But a substitute for a blackboard it ain't. On a blackboard:
A) you're led to follow the current focus of attention, whatever word is currently being written. You don't just get a big word soup to get lost in and out of sync, you get to follow the cursor (hand with chalk) so to speak, at the same time you're hearing it. It works to reinforce what you hear, not to try to split your attention between two different texts.
Congratulations. Unfortunately, that isn't always true: I've seen such a split also happen while using blackboards, repeatedly.
B) the teacher is only human too, and he too would have trouble if he tried speaking one thing while writing something completely different. So there's a self-reinforcing mechanism to hold prevent it from becoming an attention-splitting device. As a subcase, if he takes some time to explain why he did something to a formula, he won't already start writing the next one.
Unless he explains each formula as he writes it and leaves the students little or no chance to ask if they got lost.
C) it enforces _some_ structure, because a blackboard is all the space you can get at a time. Which also cuts back on distractions like flipping back and forth between charts. Which is a distraction. Everytime you go "hmm, this one we don't need.. next... nope, this one we'll learn next week... let's see the next one... nah, we don't need that... next... aha, here we are..." that's not just wasted time. That's a bunch of people who've either tried to read it fast and the next minutes will be busy figuring that out instead of what you say next, or (probably most) whose attention and focus went right out the window while you did that little powerpoint dance.
Again, I disagree, a blackboard can be as structure-lacking as a slideshow: I have seen it. And jumping over slides shows that the teacher isn't working correctly. Blame the user, not the tool.
D) well, I hate to be mean to teachers (God knows they have a shitty job already), but it forces them to prepare that material instead of just borrowing someone's slides. And if they didn't know it too well, they'll at least recap it while they write it on the blackboard.
<sarcasm>Oh, perhaps now teachers don't "borrow" their courses' themes from pre-written books (at least in primary and secondary levels). That must explain why there are no coursebooks sales.</sarcasm> Seriously now, a lazy teacher having a slideshow or a blackboard to fill with text won't make much of a difference. I have had teachers reading from a book and hiding their doing so (I had the book, and I spent most of the course underlining the sentences the teacher read).
Methinks you are being subjected to badly designed slideshows then. And yes, I have seen good and bad presentations. A good presentation will let you quickly grasp the concepts in each slide and listen to the explanation.
Technology has a very limited role in high school physics and mathematics pedagogy. As it happens, a quick blackboard pace is just slow enough to let students critically evaluate the material (with respect to note taking importance), formulate questions, and try to anticipate answers. Go any faster, and all you get is a class full of people fervently copying the slideshow verbatim.
Because you would never provide copies of the slideshow to your students with space for taking notes. Actually, I didn't even need that when I was a student: I got the slides, numbered each and wrote my comments on paper with slide references. A quick blackboard pace may mean having something like this: one person to copy what is written on the blackboard, another to copy what is being said, and a third person for Q&A (yes, the teacher wrote and spoke so fast that they had to cooperate to get the whole class written).
All this being said, I agree that hands-on material benefits from a slower pace. Not because the students will ask questions (they are too reluctant too look "stupid") but because you can ask questions to the students about how to proceed from the current point.
If a diagram can be convincingly explained once drawn, and it is complex enough to make using Photoshop or whatever worth the effort, by all means, use a predrawn diagram.
If you need a diagram (I wouldn't use Photoshop for that kind of work, but that's another debate altogether), you will benefit from not having to draw it once and again, if only because you are less likely to omit something.
IANAL, either, so please let there be one to cast light on this issue.
I never talked about distribution. That's also regulated here in Spain too (even if they don't yet manage to pin P2P down:-)
According to Dictionary.com,...
Since it's a law that requires you to get authorization, I would say it is the law that is breached first.
Good question. But if the answer is yes, then you wouldn't be "bootlegging" it, thus the point is made either way.
Perhaps the important question is: is there a way to download, for example, a MP3 file that isn't considered distribution? In Spain there are several, fortunately :-)
That _might_ be true in some countries. At least in Spain software and music are different beasts, with different limitations.
2) Boot-legging MP3s and violating the terms of the GPL are both copyright violations.
Not true, AFAIK. First is copyright infringement, second one would be breach of contract. By the way, I never got an EULA with any CD/DVD I own. By the way, bootleg automatically implies breaking the law ("illicitly sold").
3) Neither violation is covered by "Fair Use" laws.
Fair Use still applies if I download an MP3 of a song I already have in a CD I bought, right? So your point wouldn't be correct.
Congratulations on getting so many +1, you have been overrated IMO.
I guess that you were actually typing that in a most stable emotional state, considering what you wrote and the fact that you aren't the original poster :-)
How the hell should I know why he brought up Mother Teresa?
Which is what I was asking, too. At least we agree in this.
Please keep your anger control issues to yourself. The whole comment is talking about the Dalai Lama. What's the sense of comparing with Mother Theresa, anyway?
As it is, some files could have the license text changed, others cannot, IMO. But IANAL.
I humble beg you not to create that law. It would be self-defeating as they would ultimately talk much more b.s.
Hes a pretty bit of prick for a religious figure (ruling class of priests vs poor serfs).
If we are going to accept what the Wikipedia says about Tibetan Buddhism, he's more of a guru (a teacher) than a priest.
The world is better off without anyone who enjoys seeing people die horrible diseased deaths because they believe it brings them closer to god imo.
And how is that related to the Dalai-Lama? Oh, you talk about the "Dali Lama" which must be a twisted version of the Dalai Lama. That would explain your statements. And Buddhism seems to have no gods, at least in the traditional sense you imply by brings them closer to god.
But let this not keep you from bringing up references that support your statements.
Let's kill the joke for good :-) "Too much blood in the coffee subsystem" implies too little coffee there.
Unfortunately, you seem to be wrong, if we are to trust what this user says on the thread: he cites Gaim acting the same way (among "other programs"). Then again, he's not too explicit.
By the way, if you just select all spam messages and move them back to your inbox, I fear you are doing a lousy job of detecting spam yourself ;-)
The tiered pricing is a possible problem, I will agree. Then again, I doubt they would have a contract of this kind: as enterprises they want to have predictable costs, so they would most certainly buy flat-rate Internet access. Oh, and it's the first time I know of a pay-per-view channel being accessible by using the remote on the TV box (you don't mean you would play around with the TV provider's box, do you?).
If they leave their TV on after-hours, it's okay to stand in front of the store and watch it (and if I have a universal remote, maybe even changing the channel), isn't it? Unlike your cappuccino case, no entry is needed. When you look for an analogy, choose a correct one ;-) In both my example and the hotspot's there is no automatic extra cost for the store.
I thought the sarcasm was clear enough. I'll remember the tag next time.
Because a common end user switches easily between Windows versions and has no problems adapting, and he has no problems installing applications from one version into another. All of this without a "computer friend" hand-holding the process. And of course end users will mindlessly prance from one Linux distribution to the next without asking for help (well, some users I know are certainly mindless, but that's not the point).
Random numbers and reproducibility don't add up, IMO. If your simulation is good enough, having different random number sequences won't make a significative difference. As such, I can only find pseudoRNGs useful while testing for bugs, and marginally at that: a major flaw like getting out of whack because of a given series of numbers means something very wrong has happened while developing the simulation, and it's that process you should be checking, because checking the number sequence is just look at the symptoms.
If you need to repeat the random series, why don't you just store the numbers in a file? It may make sense even if you use a pseudo-generator, so you save processor time that would be used to recalculate the series again and again.
Don't be too hard on the GP. Loss of memory will do that to you too :-)
Isn't language marvelous? Of course, my point is they are fundamentally wrong from the moment they narrow the issue so there's only one option (and not even valid, at that). That won't stop them, though (you can tell a bigot, but you can't tell him much).
Ok, _that_ I didn't know. Thanks for the information.
I hope that snippet from the Slashdot article provides enough context.