Category Archives: Tech Talk Thursday

A MOOC by Any Other Name

  By Chris | January 17, 2013 - | , ,
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So Imooc‘ve been dealing a lot with MOOCs lately, trying to figure out how they work, what they are, and what some good/bad examples would be. The biggest thing I’ve noticed is that MOOC has reached buzzword status and it is being used well beyond what I believe the intent of the word was.

Looking at the announcement that California was looking towards MOOCs I noticed there were a few things wrong with that statement.

First let’s look at the first letter of MOOC, it stands for Massive. If the university is capping enrollment at 100 students how is that Massive? Secondly, Open usually implies free, so is charging a $150 fee really Open?

Not to say that this initiative isn’t a good idea, or that it won’t be successful, it just isn’t a MOOC.  As universities look towards the MOOC-model for their online offerings I believe we have reached a point where a new term will need to be coined. It probably won’t be as buzzworthy as MOOC, but maybe that’s not  such a bad thing….

Tech Talk Thursday

  By Chris | October 6, 2011 - | ,
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The Google Docs app for Android tablets has been updated.

This is a good thing because honestly, using Google Docs on a tablet has been a bit of a letdown. I use my tablet more and more, and this addition makes it one step easier for making a tablet a second instead of third device. In other words, needing a laptop for mobile computing is becoming less of a necessity for me as I can do just about everything I need to do on a tablet when I am not at my desk.

Tech Talk Thursday

  By Chris | September 22, 2011 - | ,
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Some thoughts on the Netflix split:
While I think in the short term Netflix will suffer from their price increase and then misguided service split, I think in the long term they will come out stronger.
I think the customers lost from this were expecting too much for basically free. Hopefully this will allow Netflix to focus on their core customers who actually like their product.
I do think the split to two different services is a mistake, done hastily in reaction to a vocal group of bad customers. One of the downfalls of our constantly wired world is that it can be very easy for a few people to blow things out of proportion and then have their opinion given undue weight.

Tech Talk Thursday

  By Chris | April 28, 2011 - | ,
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Here’s an interesting article on Software for University IT Labs

I find it interesting that there is always call to reduce lab services when usage statistics show that students are using labs about the same as they did in the past, even though “everyone” goes to college with a computer. In my experience labs provide an excellent service for students on campus.