Monthly Archives: July 2013

In praise of the small conference

As a PhD student it is easy to get starry-eyed over large conferences. You know the ones I mean. The ones with attendance figures of seven thousand, with stellar keynote casting and hotel spaces booked up three years in advance. For five or six days ‘the big names’ are chased by the non-tenured for their […] … learn more→

Pricing College tuition

Let’s assume for the purposes of this analysis that getting a college degree is good for most Americans. This assumption does not mean that every American needs a college degree to lead a productive life. But in most areas and in many industries a college degree will open the same doors for students that a […] … learn more→

Cyber-safety or cyber-maturity? Teaching ethics in a virtual world

Sexting is back in the news for all the wrong reasons. Multiple incidents of teenagers circulating explicit images of other teenagers are under investigation in Victoria. It has emerged that Queensland police have charged 240 children for producing and distributing child pornography so far in 2013. Any minor who takes an erotic image of themselves […] … learn more→

Censorship, pornography and divine swan-on-human action

The UK Prime Minister has declared that Internet service providers should by default block access to pornography, and that some “horrific” internet search terms to be “blacklisted” on the major search engines, not bringing up any search results. The main motivation of the speech appears to be that access to pornography is “corroding childhood” by […] … learn more→

Who Is driving the online locomotive?

Proponents of online learning often use train metaphors to describe its growing impact on the educational landscape. Those of us who teach at two-year colleges, especially, are constantly encouraged, prodded, hectored, cajoled—and sometimes even ordered—to get on board. Otherwise, we\’re told, we\’re likely to be run over. As one who is skeptical regarding the long-term […] … learn more→

Human- Elephant conflict – will it come to an end?

The elephant is deeply loved and revered in India. It was the choice of Emperors during the princely era and several elephants are still employed for various works in India. It may thus appear surprising to people that elephant-man conflicts are alarmingly becoming a ritual which no one seems to have any solution for. There […] … learn more→

Can you Tweet your way to your next job?

How much can you say in 140 characters? A lot — and often. Just ask the millions of Twitter users worldwide. Companies large and small are aggressively growing their Twitter presence to communicate directly with their customers, partners, investors, employees and potential candidates. In response, professionals are creating profiles that showcase their expertise, opinions and […] … learn more→