Duck of Minerva - Latest Comments

Re: ISA International Ethics Book Award

Ronan Fitzgerald — Sat, 18 May 2013 20:06:24 -0000

Do you mind if I ask you something a little (okay a lot) off topic? Im reading John Darwins the empire project and really enjoying it.. Im wondering have you read it and if so what do you make of the premise?

Re: Friday Morning Linkage

Halvard Leira — Fri, 17 May 2013 18:50:46 -0000

No, no, no. "Søttende mai". But thanks for recognising!

Re: A Terrific Piece on “The MOOC Moment”

Michelle — Fri, 17 May 2013 15:29:39 -0000

MOOCs aren't just for traditional higher-ed students. What about lifelong learners or others who don't have the option to be on a campus?

Re: A Terrific Piece on “The MOOC Moment”

MOOC News & Reviews — Fri, 17 May 2013 15:12:48 -0000

It's nice to see a piece that is resistant to MOOCs but that also acknowledges a potential role for them in higher education. We shouldn't let anyone snowball universities into using MOOCs as 1-1 replacements for quality courses or even into using them at all.

I do have a few quibbles with the basis of your hostility, as you call it. First, it seems that, like other other people hostile to MOOCs, you conflate all the strange bedfellows on the other side. I don't think the people who acknowledge the limitations of MOOCs are the same people who want to use them as an easy solution to funding and bottleneck problems. State legislators who already have a track record of de-investing in higher ed might promote MOOCs as a solution, but they probably don't care either way if MOOCs can or will overcome their limitations. It sounds like a guilt-by-association argument to use the "easy answers" crowd to dismiss the large number of thoughtful people interested in exploring the potential of this educational model. If a legislator argued that taxpayers should replace my class with your iTunes and YouTube recordings, my response wouldn't be that you are hyping the power of iTunes and YouTube.

Similarly, while I'm no mind-reader, out of the the dozens of MOOC teachers I've talked to, I've never sensed anything but a sincere interest in expanding opportunities for education. I suppose some careerists and profiteers must be among them, but I don't think all MOOC teachers can be so easily dismissed. Incidentally, an unacknowledged fact about MOOCs is that the three providers most in the news make up less than half the total MOOC universe. Most MOOC instructors are from more humble institutions than the ones we're seeing in the news. For example, take a look at what's being done by the math department at the University of Wisconsin - LaCrosse, by a non-tenure-track instructor, by the way.

Third, you imply that MOOCs are not much more than recorded lectures. They are more complicated than that, and many of them don't use recorded lectures at all.

Fourth, MOOCs may or may not be revolutionary. But I can't understand an argument against them that doesn't also acknowledge the large number of people enrolling in them and the energy and interaction among those MOOC students. Maybe they are just fashioinistas. Maybe they are trend followers. Maybe they are dupes. I've talked to a couple hundred of them, and I don't think so. In fact, I think they are collectively working together to develop their own knowledge and skills in much the way we say college is supposed to work and rarely does. But even if we're all mistaken about that -- or even just acknowledging the limitations of that model -- that activity has some significance of some kind. And I've yet to hear the criticism of someone hostile to MOOCs that acknowledges and explains that activity.

Robert McGuire

Editor, MOOC News and Reviews

Re: A Terrific Piece on “The MOOC Moment”

Nicholas Lees — Fri, 17 May 2013 03:40:39 -0000

Not specific to MOOCs, the sound and fury is a general feature of the Wired-TED-technofashionista echo-chamber. Their worldview was insightfully critiqued by Richard Barbrook as the 'Californian Ideology'. In his Imaginary Futures (http://www.imaginaryfutures.ne... he links this to Cold War modernisation theory and the need to provide a progressive vision of a capitalist future. He notes the ideological role it plays through its insistence that a radical future is immanent, a future that never actually seems to arrive. The imagery of this radical future, widely dispersed through popular culture, has now (as you suggest) been yoked to the general neo-liberal project as well as the particular projects of 'business-consultant rent-seekers' (and/or quasi-rent monopolisers) mining the public sector and the commons for revenue streams.

Re: A Terrific Piece on “The MOOC Moment”

DuckPM — Thu, 16 May 2013 18:13:13 -0000

PTJ: How do you find readings for class? (I know that's a broad question, but I'm interested in your course prep strategies.)

Re: A Terrific Piece on “The MOOC Moment”

LFC — Thu, 16 May 2013 13:15:33 -0000

p.s. the people at S-USIH.org have just set up a formal MOOC committee (fwiw/fyi)

Re: A Terrific Piece on “The MOOC Moment”

LFC — Thu, 16 May 2013 13:10:17 -0000

Esp where the norm (as it is, iirc, at SIS and many other places) is 5 courses per semester for undergrads. This is -- arguably -- too many and the standard course load shd be cut back to 4, esp since a lot of students are working on top of that and/or doing extracurricular things.

Re: A Terrific Piece on “The MOOC Moment”

Annick T.R. Wibben — Thu, 16 May 2013 12:00:12 -0000

I've been following Aaron Brady (and the discussion of MOOCs more generally) on twitter and would like to add that Aaron just was part of a conversation with Tressie McMillan Cottom at UC Irvine this past week and the synergy of their analysis of MOOCs was wonderful. You can watch their panel here: http://vimeo.com/66105111 and read the written version of her talk here: http://tressiemc.com/2013/05/1... (where you can also check out other critical work on MOOCs by Tressie).

Re: A Terrific Piece on “The MOOC Moment”

PTJ — Thu, 16 May 2013 10:34:18 -0000

Part of the trick is also to use shorter, pithier reading assignments. There has to be a time trade-off someplace, and if students are spending some time getting a podcast before class that time has to be made up someplace. Of course, this ebbs and flows over the course of a semester, but it is important to keep one eye on overall balance and time-commitment.

Re: A Terrific Piece on “The MOOC Moment”

Dan Nexon — Thu, 16 May 2013 10:22:09 -0000

Flipping can be terrific. PTJ has done it well, mainly by posting *short* lectures. Otherwise, there's a real risk of overloading the students with work outside the classroom.

Re: A Terrific Piece on “The MOOC Moment”

Andrew G — Thu, 16 May 2013 03:13:57 -0000

I share Dan's critical perspective on the MOOC discourse but this analysis overlooks two fundamental possibilities this trend offers. Firstly, for students in second- and third-tier institutions MOOCs are a way to gain access to content and analytical insights that can transform their understanding and hence their own college education. Of course, this development puts core faculty at risk at those institutions, as can be seen from San Jose State's Philosophy Department's reluctance to embark on the MOOC path (http://chronicle.com/article/A...
Secondly, at elite, well-endowed institutions MOOCs (or merely posting online lectures) allows for a "flipping" of the classroom i.e. assigning lectures as preparatory material for collaborative/interactive classroom contact hours rather than top-down lecturing. The latter is where I think the Ivies are heading, using their phenomenal resources to nurture students via project work, enthusiastic TAs (still with reasonable stipends) etc.

Re: A Terrific Piece on “The MOOC Moment”

Jarrod Hayes — Wed, 15 May 2013 22:31:45 -0000

Magnificent post. I really appreciate how you are working through the same thoughts I am. It had occurred to me that I might be being selfish as well, seeing this technology as potentially making me, or perhaps those that follow, jobless. But I didn't have a strong sense that was the case, only that I was afraid I might be evaluating MOOCs on that basis. You've clarified my own thinking.

Re: Women’s Income, Household Chores, Divorce, and the Need for a Norm Cascade

AYeo — Wed, 15 May 2013 22:23:19 -0000

My economist wife makes a lot more than I do. I contribute more to housework/day care duty than probably most average males. I think it's a win-win arrangement!

Re: Midweek Mélange

DuckPM — Wed, 15 May 2013 22:16:42 -0000

You know, this actually does make me kind of sad. Which is weird and stupid.

Re: Tuesday Evening Linkage Club

DuckPM — Wed, 15 May 2013 18:45:27 -0000

Perhaps there is need for a followup blog post, evaluating what this thread implies for the funding of policy-relevant research by the FSF (the Federation Science Foundation).

Re: Women’s Income, Household Chores, Divorce, and the Need for a Norm Cascade

Rabia Akhtar — Wed, 15 May 2013 18:22:32 -0000

Dear Dr. Murdie

Thank you for your post. It is an interesting research. Coming from a society (Pakistan) which is full of complexities and where gender differences are much more advanced than those in the first world (mainly due to social construction and low levels of literacy), I can find some sensibility in this research. As I was growing up, I saw a lot of working women around me who for the sake of saving their marriages, quit their jobs and became stay home moms. I was never able to understand that phenomenon till I myself got married to a man who was lesser qualified and lesser paid than I was. Although it was an arranged marriage and I knew that these differences between our education levels were real but I dismissed them to the utmost extent being an idealist that I was (thinking a little love will solve it all). At the time I got married I was not doing any job but I started doing one within three months of our marriage to 'help' him meet the ends of a growing family. I saw the change in his attitude and the attitude of my in-laws afterwards cos I was earning more than him which turned him into an unhappy person who thought of himself 'less of a man' suddenly. My society is a male dominated society and it is unfortunate that if a woman progresses on merit, her male counterparts/spouses/society in general, play the 'character' card and pull her down from her otherwise soaring heights. In their malicious campaign, her success, more perks and being highly paid is linked to her being low in character enough to have afforded her such status. The 'complexes' that males carry in my society are an unfortunate reality with which working women have to deal with day in and day out. So as a result, some quit and some despite their competencies settle for low-paying jobs which do challenge the role of males in their families as the primary bread earners. My divorce was not primarily because of this reason but I can tell you this that I had a bitter experience of marriage because of a partner who did not want to see his wife earn more than he did.

Now having said that, I have not read this research you have quoted before posting this long comment and I don't even know what is the sample for this study but I can tell you that first world issues and complexes are certainly different than those of the developing world. Things are changing in my part of the world too but it will take a long time for men in my society to stop having brusied egos. I agree with your norm, real men perhaps can handle this fact better that they don't earn more than their wives do. And may be at the end of the day, this is all that matters.

Re: A Terrific Piece on “The MOOC Moment”

Jason R Weidner — Wed, 15 May 2013 18:01:01 -0000

Well said. Bob Meister does a great job of exposing the rent-seeking logic behind the push for MOOCs as well as the likely consequences: http://cucfa.org/news/2013_may...

Re: Tuesday Evening Linkage Club

Seth Masket — Wed, 15 May 2013 16:43:28 -0000

"What was prime-Pike's dissertation about?" Someone knows the answer to this. It must be in one of the books or something. But I doubt it would have saved him. Keep in mind that if it wasn't for Kirk, Pike's Enterprise (in the reboot) would have been wiped out immediately by Nero's ship, even though Pike was likely the most knowledgeable person in the Federation about it. Damned academics don't know how to apply.

Re: Midweek Mélange

DuckPM — Wed, 15 May 2013 14:35:03 -0000

Win

Re: Tuesday Evening Linkage Club

DuckPM — Wed, 15 May 2013 14:34:38 -0000

I hope it's clear that I thought it was a good post ... just unfortunately timed.

It does raise the question: What was prime-Pike's dissertation about? And if he had had the experience of studying the Kelvin, would he have handled the Talosian situation differently?

Re: Tuesday Evening Linkage Club

Seth Masket — Wed, 15 May 2013 12:08:26 -0000

Yeah, sorry. I posted the Pike piece before I had heard about Waltz. For what it's worth, I took two of his classes when I was an undergrad, and he had greater influence on my thinking than just about anyone else on the Cal faculty.

Re: Midweek Mélange

Jeppe Mulich — Wed, 15 May 2013 11:58:55 -0000

No worries - it's just taking a nap! The duck will be in HK harbor till sometime in June. I'll ask my girlfriend to document it's actual demise when the time comes. https://twitter.com/hkharbourc...

Re: Midweek Mélange

ThusBloggedAnderson — Wed, 15 May 2013 11:35:40 -0000

The duck of Minerva deflates at dusk.

Re: Abenomics is a Not an Excuse for Comfort-Women Denialism

Hume's Bastard — Wed, 15 May 2013 05:14:01 -0000

Last point, and I'll stop obsessing. The "no-enemies-on-the-right" strategy failed. In the US, there's the Tea Party and Fox, smoother, richer versions of the Birchers. In Europe, the far right has returned in the South. In the US, too, SCOTUS is about to review the Voting Rights Act. Who even bothers about gerrymandering or African-American incarceration and the extreme separation of races in urban/suburban/rural districts? In Europe, is anyone taking on German banks? I would call it the "canary-in-the-coalmine": right-wing nutjobs are a gift. They warn us that these mistakes, like Japanese demilitarization and compromise on the imperial system, lead to unintended consequences. Hashimoto is no one; there will be others, and they might actually have military backing and money. Waltz died the other day, and we all forget that this is a third-image problem exacerbated by second-image facts, not a first-image problem. Well, we ARE stupid, though.