Online International ASL Tutoring

Boles University and HardcoreASL.com are pleased to announce two new programs.

The first is our ability to now offer online and in person international American Sign Language fluency evaluations for job seekers, businesses and private individuals. Now you can get a job based on your ASL skills, or you can "opt out" of a foreign language requirement for your schooling.

Next, we now offer online private ASL tutoring via iChat and Skype. Now you can learn ASL from the comfort of your home or office wherever in the world you live.

Head on over to HardcoreASL.com and click around to see all the programs we're offering on that portal.

Offline with Google Docs

Google announced this week we can now use their "Google Gears" feature to work on Google Docs offline.

This is a big step because it means you no longer have to be connected to the internet to interact with Google. You can now be offline and still be Google and that is a momentous happening that few seem to understand.

Google, by going offline, livens up your entire life instead of just your virtual one. You can use Google as you wish and on your own terms. You don't have to look for an internet connection. You don't need to worry about losing data in a disconnection.

You just write in Google Docs in offline mode and then later, when you go online, Google Docs will reconcile your documents between your computer and its servers and you're good to keep going!

Google Docs Offline sets the mark for Google books you own at home, Google cellphones you hold in your hand, and Google pillows that float you off to rest in that beautiful Google dreamland.

Stealing Student Content

The University of Iowa's famous Writing Program is under fire from its graduate students -- and the creative world at large -- for its new "Open Access" philosophy of publishing creative works of its students on the internet to be found and indexed by Google and other search engines.

That attack on the creative spark is not going over well in the creative community because no publisher would want to buy a book if it was already "published" for free on the internet.

This leads to a larger question: Who owns the Copyright? The student? Or the university?

Some universities outright claim at least co-ownership -- if not full ownership -- of anything created under their program mandate.

Few students understand that, by participating in a graduate program, they are forgiving any claims to Copyright ownership in order to be accepted into -- and sustained by -- their university program of study.

That student acquiescence of Copyright is automatic and invisible -- even if the student pays his or her own way in the program.

Many university film programs have always claimed Copyright from their students because, they argue, without their support and inspiration, the film would never have been produced and that makes the university at least a co-author in the creation of the work.

Every graduate student must begin to ask about Copyright ownership of their work before they accept any offer for advanced study.

Smart universities will use the Copyright card as an enticement -- "You create it, you own it!" That philosophy will entice excellent graduate students into their programs.

When a university guarantees its students full ownership of their creations, everyone wins because the original inspiration is legally protected from institutional thievery and future legal dismay.

Picture Yourself Learning American Sign Language

Our newest book on teaching ASL -- Picture Yourself Learning American Sign Language, Level 1 -- is now available on Amazon and Barnes and Noble!

This is our second ASL book that uses on our Hardcore ASL teaching method and Picture Yourself Learning American Sign Language, Level 1 even has a DVD included so you can sign and learn with us in real time video teaching!

The unique part of the book is our "Pick and Say Rubric" that helps you make quick -- "three idea" -- sentences constructed in ASL simply by picking one or more words/ideas from a RED column, a GREEN column and a BLUE column and then signing them in that sequence.

You will then be able to create at least 27,000 American Sign Language sentences by only learning 90 words -- and understanding the sentence building concept takes less than 10 seconds.

We know you will appreciate the book and you could even use it as your online ASL learning effort with us here at Boles University. If you have any questions, you can find us here!

Yale University Goes e-Book Crazy

In a delightful turn of events, Yale University decided to make large bits of its library holdings available as e-books and e-journals so students may more easily search for relevancy based on the actual text of books and journals instead of only by their abstracts or a publisher's promotional blurp.

That sort of self-sustained effort by Yale is a fine example of self-initiated institutional intellectual prosperity that doesn't mandate the inclusion of an outside, for-profit, enterprise that skews the good intentions of a model program.

If more universities offered e-books and e-journals for use by their students and faculty -- and even the outside world -- we would then begin to even out the inequity in library holdings across the United States and the fount of knowledge that yearns to be free in the world will begin to trickle down into all open minds to be shared with the universe at large.

The Equalization Effect of Digital Publishing

Established mainstream authors like John Updike are furious with Google for scanning books into the public domain and they're angry with publishers that choose to sell electronic editions of books -- any book.

We argue authors like Updike are angry because their specialness in publication is being ravaged by the equanimity and the equality of the digital publishing, print-on-demand, business model creeping into the book world.

Where once these "Big Name" authors were King Makers with power and influence -- everyone can now play on the same ground as them as the playing field is leveled and leavened in favor of the everyday and the accessible.

You create power and wield it when you can narrow access to minds and to the control of thoughts.

If everyone in the room with you -- and even those out in the world at large -- can go toe-to-toe with you to compete for the hearts and ideas of an ever-widening readership, your star shines less, your book advances dwindle, and your awards and certificates are diminished as the power is equalized.

Be wary of anyone claiming electronic publishing is bad for reading -- and when you see that sort of strange protest -- look for the threat to the backend profit the protestor is making behind your back.

Open Yale Courses Opens the Floodgates

Well, it happened: Yale University now offers free online courses for anyone interested in learning online.

You can get text notes, listen to audio, or watch the lectures on streaming video:

Open Yale Courses provides free and open access to seven introductory courses taught by distinguished teachers and scholars at Yale University. The aim of the project is to expand access to educational materials for all who wish to learn.

Open Yale Courses reflects the values of a liberal arts education. Yale's philosophy of teaching and learning begins with the aim of training a broadly based, highly disciplined intellect without specifying in advance how that intellect will be used.

This approach goes beyond the acquisition of facts and concepts to cultivate skills and habits of rigorous, independent thought: the ability to analyze, to ask the next question, and to begin the search for an answer.

This is welcome, incredible, news -- and it begins the assault on lesser-know colleges and universities across the world -- as Yale becomes the first of the big Ivy League schools to move so fully and so dramatically into interactive online teaching.

This step for Yale tests their toe in the online learning water.

When Yale are satisfied, they will begin to offer distance courses for credit.

Then, the slow death begins for local colleges and universities as brick and mortal buildings give way to Yale University Online.

If you could get a Yale education without having to leave the comfort of your bedroom, you'd do it, we'd do it, the world will do it.

We admire Yale for getting this right so fast and for setting a dangerous -- yet brilliant -- stage for the future of advanced education.

Reading the Universal Digital Library

As online teaching grows, we are always looking for good ideas and project partners to help foment the acquisition of knowledge and memes on the internet and in the virtual classroom.

The Universal Digital Library is an ambitious project we fully support:

Up until now, the transmission of our cultural heritage has depended on limited numbers of copies in fragile media. The fires of Alexandria irrevocably severed our access to any of the works of the ancients. In a thousand years, only a few of the paper documents we have today will survive the ravages of deterioration, loss, and outright destruction.

With no more than 10 million unique book and document editions before the year 1900, and perhaps 100 million since the beginning of recorded history, the task of preservation is much larger. With new digital technology, though, this task is within the reach of a single concerted effort for the public good, and this effort can be distributed to libraries, museums, and other groups in all countries.

This is an ambitious project that is slowly winning its goal of indexing every printed page in the world and we cannot wait to read every word!

Kindle in the Classroom

The greatest power in the new Kindle ebook reader from Amazon is the grand possibility of its use in the classroom.

Imagine how easy it would be to deliver up-to-date and of-the-moment textbook information to students?

You could all browse the morning paper together.

Course materials can be emailed and uploaded to the Kindle automagically.

The beauty of Kindle is -- even in the virtual classrooms of Boles University -- we can still use the same traditions and memes of Kindle learning as other on campus classrooms.

Kindle clarifies and evens out the blurry line between traditional teaching and virtual learning.

Kindle makes the virtual real and the real virtual -- and in that combination of ingenuity and inspiration -- comes the real purpose of us all: To carry forward the learning of others so that we may begin to transform memory into meaning in our current lives and to then warn others in the future against the perils of what we already know.

Does Copyright Matter?

With the advent of online publication, does Copyright matter any longer?

With RSS feeds spewing new content into the world directly every day can a person claim Copyright to their original material if they are unable to enforce their right and prosecute infringement?

If you give your work away for free, can you still own it if others take your work, revitalize it, repackage it, and use it to create profit?

How can we begin to protect our Copyrighted work if there are no longer firewalls and safety implements to shield the work from thieves?

Is Virtual Learning as Effective as In Person Teaching?

Is it possible to learn online as effectively as you can in the classroom?

The answer is: Yes!

A bad teacher is a bad teacher -- but a great "real classroom teacher" can be a terrible online teacher because one must adhere to a different set of demands and expectations as an online instructor.

We all need to open more pathways of thinking. We must be creative. We must not think in days and weeks and hours. We must believe in the "everlasting now" as we are always thinking and learning at all times.

We must also always think in "virtual eternity" and that will begin to light up new ways of pondering that will lead us to know how to make our online classes sing -- and we work on those totems of entertainment and learning every day here at Boles University!

Celebrating Static Pages

There is nothing wrong with creating a plain text, static, non-MySQL webpage that serves as a personal online portal for identification and being.

Information does not need to move and wiggle and have comments in order to be important as the ARClog blog argues:

Arguably, blogs appear to have eclipsed what was once the domain of the published journal article. While I still believe in the viability of the published article as a communication vehicle and as a demonstration of one’s ability to succeed in the venue of traditional disciplinary publishing, for many academic librarians - particularly those new to the profession - that may no longer be the case. And if blogs were ever to replace scholarly journal articles as the gold standard for those on the tenure track, published journal articles would likely languish even more.

The power of the world is in the living expression of thoughts and in the association of meanings -- and the frame around those ideas must never matter.

A cave painting is just as valuable as a hieroglyph as is a crayon drawing as is a printed page in a magazine as is a personal web page that has been indexed by the search spiders, but not updated, for the last five years.

Celebrate the static page by recognizing the value in the reverence for the creation of the human word in any form.

Building an Online University

We were pleased with the news today that Colorado State University is going online with its learning:

Colorado State University is launching a $12 million online university that will help students who don’t have the time or money to get a traditional on-campus four-year education.

Called CSU-Colorado, and approved by the CSU Board of Governors on Friday, the online university will serve Coloradans and out-of-state students.

CSU is facing the inevitable fact: University Learning no longer requires a campus. Your students do not need dorms. Your faculty must not live in Colorado to teach.

In a decade more students will be earning degrees online than in traditional classrooms because distance learning is convenient, cheap to create and propagate, and gets easier as technology gets better.

Online Research in Firefox

Have you discovered Zotero yet?

Zotero [zoh-TAIR-oh] is a free, easy-to-use Firefox extension to help you collect, manage, and cite your research sources. It lives right where you do your work — in the web browser itself.

Zotero makes online research a joy and it is easy to install and simple to use while providing you with powerful results.

Anti-Social Networking

We discussed Social Networking in a recent post.

Danah Boyd has written on this topic arguing that Facebook is elitist while MySpace is more of a Jederman experience:

The goodie two shoes, jocks, athletes, or other "good" kids are now going to Facebook. These kids tend to come from families who emphasize education and going to college.... They are in honors classes, looking forward to the prom, and live in a world dictated by after-school activities.

MySpace is still home for Latino/Hispanic teens, immigrant teens, "burnouts," "alternative kids," "art fags," punks, emos, goths, gangstas, queer kids, and other kids who didn't play into the dominant high school popularity paradigm. These are kids whose parents didn't go to college, who are expected to get a job when they finish high school. These are the teens who plan to go into the military immediately after schools.

This is a fascinating topic that online social networks can close people off and confirm pre-existing stereotypes and prejudices.

Social Networking

What does Social Networking mean to you?

Is it a blog?

A chat?

An online community?

We believe Boles University is a social meme for human internetworking -- but we want to know your take on the matter.

Google Apps in the .EDU Domain

"The Wired Campus" is reporting Google Apps for Your Domain is finding a strong foothold in education:

Trinity College Dublin has switched to Google's e-mail application, Gmail. And universities in Egypt, Kenya, and Rwanda have also made the switch, the BBC reported yesterday. In Dublin, the news service says, "the addresses and domain name still remain the same -- but underneath the bonnet, it's a service provided by Google." Trinity College officials say they made the decision to outsource because it let them maintain a robust e-mail system at no additional cost; Google does all the work. Arizona State University made the same decision late last year to switch to Gmail, which also comes with a calendar and instant messaging, two items that are very attractive to students.

We use Google Apps for Your Domain here at Boles University to manage our email, calendar, documents, blog and our virtual lives!

We like Google Apps so much, we're writing a book about it -- Google Apps for Your Domain Administrator Guide -- for Thomson publishing.

iTunes U Compresses Technology

We are delighted with the idea of Apple's new iTunes University where students can "download and learn" using their iPods:

Today’s students use their computers to interface with the world. They go online to email, chat, and surf. They get photos, music, movies — and most of their information and ideas — on the web. Now you can tap into that digital lifestyle to keep students every bit as engaged with your courses. iTunes U lets you easily expand your curriculum, delivering audio and video you curate or create yourself to deepen the learning experience.

The promise of being able to meet our students on a new mechanical level of excellence is just the way technology should compress minds and provide deeper meaning to life.

Cheating to Get Ahead

There is no greater harm to intellect or the education process than plagiarizing.

When you steal or purchase the thoughts of others and claim them as your own -- the entire salvation of the world crumbles to ash.

We were thrilled to learn this week that Google have refused to accept advertising from Paper Mills as reported by Chronicle.com:

Term-paper and essay-writing services join prostitutes, firearms dealers, and hacking sites in Google's forbidden-advertising zone, the company announced yesterday. Academic paper-writing services, or "paper mills," will no longer be able to buy search terms in the Google AdWords program, and thus their ads will no longer pop up in the "sponsored links" sections of a Google search-results page. (Links to those sites could still be found among the results on the main part of the page, however.) The paper mills, which offer buyers papers written to order for a fee, have been the subject of sharp complaints from universities, which view them as sources of plagiarism. But the companies themselves have a different view.

We here at Boles University believe it is vitally important to protect original thoughts and to demand from our students their own unique ideas.

It is only in the free discussion of ideas that thought gains purpose over emotion and instinct.

We are humanized by our minds and the facts of our shared human memory.

American Sign Language Tutoring

We are happy to announce our ability to offer American Sign Language tutoring via our HardcoreASL.com website.

We are able to offer virtual ASL tutoring and in-person tutoring.

The choice is all yours!