"The best and brightest take a detour" Enrollment in honors programs at community colleges seems to be growing faster than overall enrollment at the [colleges], which surged by about 10 percent this year in the Washington region, as students of various age groups and socioeconomic levels sought affordable higher education. via Daniel de Vise washingtonpost.com … Continue reading Is this a signal about the direction of Foundation Degrees in the UK?

"Individual citizens and public interest groups do periodically urge us to remove particular links or otherwise adjust search results. Although Google reserves the right to address such requests individually, Google views the integrity of our search results as an extremely important priority."Sometimes Google search results from the internet can include disturbing content, even from innocuous … Continue reading Google hypocricy? Racism OK in the west; Tibetan politics a reserved right requested individually by China?

Dave Cormier appears to be arguing for a particularly strong form of cultural determinism in his post, "Does the PLE make sense in a connectivist context?" and in his reply to comments. He is troubled by the use of the word "personal": ... why call it personal? That’s the thing that i keep coming back … Continue reading It’s nothing personal: Identity, learning environments and covert curricula

I wrote the following as a comment on Dave Cormier's blog post, "Does the PLE make sense in the connectivist context?" The reification of the PLE is for me the problem. We all have personal learning environments in the sense of from time to time framing our world around “learning”. What’s in the frame? That’s … Continue reading Thoughts on a PLE

The number of Americans who lack dependable access to adequate food shot up last year to 49 million, via washingtonpost.com Put aside the swipes at super-size meals and easy obese targets, this Washington Post article about a US Department of Agriculture report makes shocking (to me) reading: "Among people of all ages, nearly 15 percent … Continue reading 49M (15%) of Americans lack dependable access to food; this is not good. When people go hungry they get pissed off

Apple's filed a patent on a design for a device that won't let its owner use it unless that person demonstrates that she has complied with an advertiser's demands by paying attention to an ad and taking some action indicating her dutiful attention. via boingboing.net Google may be no saint and privacy is a problem, … Continue reading Among many reasons I will not have an iPhone & will split my PLE between vendors

There is absolutely no doubt that academic practices are changing - in fact text and what we can do with it is probably changing faster than other modes are being adopted - for me the question is how we reframe in the new knowledge media landscape what is valuable about academic modes of communication. via … Continue reading @helenbeetham good post on why talk about texts? Image search for knowledge on the rise

Edward Leigh MP, chairman of the [Public Accounts] Committee, today said: "The closure of the local post office can be a real blow to the community. So the inadequate assessment by the Department [of Business Innovation and Skills (BIS)] of the social and economic costs of its programme to close some 2,500 post offices showed a … Continue reading BIS “Lacks concern for citizens” re Post Office closures according to MP, head of public accounts cttee

Plugging [an electric Mini] in is, Steinberg said, the equivalent of adding one or two homes to the neighborhood’s grid. He believes the widespread adoption of electric cars, which are expected to hit the market next year, will require upgrades across the grid. This is especially true because BMW expects to see “pocket effects” where … Continue reading Let’s be clear. Electric cars are not the answer

Like A J Cann I have been wondering about the optimum unit size for wave writing (Drowning). Indeed this may be the wrong size. I'd be better off replying in a comment on his blog or writing in my own, referencing his for the track back. Then I discovered the Posterous Robot so might be … Continue reading Drowning or Waving