March 8th, 2008 — the web
the toronto star tells the story of chris avenir, a first-year student facing academic expulsion “for helping run an online chemistry study group via facebook“.
“so we each would be given chemistry questions and if we were having trouble, we’d post the question and say: ‘does anyone get how to do this one? i didn’t get it right and i don’t know what i’m doing wrong.’ exactly what we would say to each other if we were sitting in the dungeon.”
as an educator, i think ryerson university is taking this way too far (based on what i know). if there was blatant cheating going on, then by all means punish those involved. if this is, as the article says, the students were simply using the forum to “brainstorm” in groups then it is completely absurd.
i *encourage* my students to work together in groups. working together in groups in something that higher education should teach you. every one of these students will have to work together in teams once they get out into the “real world” and will have to collaborate with their peers. it should also be common knowledge that having multiple people in your group who can provide their own insights is an asset, and makes the team greater than the sum of its parts.
again, blatant academic dishonesty should be punished. from what i’ve read, however, that is not the case here.
best of luck to you, chris avenir.
March 6th, 2008 — apple
i just applied for the iphone enterprise beta program for my .edu:
“announcing the iphone enterprise beta program: a unique opportunity for it departments to try iphone 2.0 software before general release. if your company is selected to participate, you’ll test new iphone enterprise features within your corporate environment, then provide apple with valuable feedback. interested? click below to apply.”
*click*
“we appreciate your interest in the iphone enterprise beta program.”
cool!
February 24th, 2008 — blog
jeremy works at a post-secondary educational institution. his job duties include managing high-speed fiber optic networks, administering win2k/win2k3, debian, gentoo, and rhel servers, database administration, security, and occasionally hacking on some perl or php.
he also serves as an adjunct faculty member, teaching network security courses. he is a staunch advocate of foss, is currently working towards a bachelor’s degree in information technology, and also owns a consulting company.
jeremy has been a technological swiss army knife since the oregon trail was text only. his favorite color is sushi. he has never been to the moon.
February 3rd, 2008 — goals, gtd, life
this is a list of some of my “life goals” — things that i want to do at some point in my life. i usually track my short-term goals elsewhere (such as vitalist, my gtd system of choice), but it never hurts to make a list of things you want to do “someday” and refer to it often to keep you on track. a lot of these i will never get around to, for various reasons, and i’m fine with that.
with that, i present to you my list of “life goals”. it will be revised often and the list is not in any particular order.
