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That is very common. Mathematicians do like to use blackboards. There are good reasons, but some of the excuses don't really stand up to scrutiny. Derek. _______________________________________ Derek Ord Head of Student Administrative Services University of Hull (01482) 465980 -----Original Message----- From: Plagiarism [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of George MacDonald Ross Sent: 08 February 2008 14:56 To: [log in to unmask] Subject: Re: Blackboards new plagiarism tool When our main lecture theatre block at Leeds was upgraded with lots of electronic equipment, one room was left with a blackboard and chalk because the mathematicians said they couldn't do maths in any other way. I'm surprised they weren't given a sandpit for doing geometry in. George. -----Original Message----- From: Plagiarism [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Mike Reddy Sent: 08 February 2008 11:57 To: [log in to unmask] Subject: Re: Blackboards new plagiarism tool You know, when I read the subject line of this thread I got all excited! Use blackboards... Then the students are just copying already. Talk -> Chalk -> Write -> Walk... ...and maybe... -> Think... ...(later) Just like when I was a student; ah the nostalgia. No notes on-line. No multimedia content. Then I realised it was "Blackboard", the VLE that was being referred to. :-( So, forgive me for the flashback, but on Tuesday I was talking to some of my second year students, and we mentioned the Overhead Projector - although I prefer the original term "omniepidiascope" that was my first given label to describe it - and they were quite disparaging about their previous university still using those old things. These students transferred courses from another institution after their first year, but not I believe for this reason alone. It made me stop and ponder about all our projectors and "intelligent" white boards - never did understand how white could be intelligent, with apologies to the "intelligent shades of the colour blue" created by Douglas Adams, in his "Hitch-hiker" series. Some of the lecturers have tablet PCs, which are very cool by the way. So, it is all a long way from chalk and talk. Now, how is this relevant to plagiarism? Not sure I know, sorry. But isn't it interesting that communication of knowledge via the medium of chalk was very low-level. Thought and debate was rare in a traditional lecture, which was quite asynchronous, with hands aching from rapid scribbling and eyes trained to speed read. Do we not communicate more opinion and emotion now than ever before? Is the reliance on expecting students to self-serve the factual content really fair, and then to make sure they do this by making it a summative assessment; I cannot be alone in seeing students suffering from "assignmentitis" where they will only do it if it will contribute to their grade. I don't miss the demise of the blackboard. I enjoy the creativity of presenting information in a more experiential way. I guess the trick might be to involve the students in that creation. Maybe, their experiences of mashups on Youtube, Facebook, etc, will mean that they have a few things to teach us. Here is a convincer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGCJ46vyR9o See what your response to this is, and apologies if you have seen it before. Mike ************************************************************************ * You are subscribed to the JISC Plagiarism mailing list. To Unsubscribe, change your subscription options, or access list archives, visit http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/PLAGIARISM.html ************************************************************************ * ************************************************************************ * You are subscribed to the JISC Plagiarism mailing list. To Unsubscribe, change your subscription options, or access list archives, visit http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/PLAGIARISM.html ************************************************************************ * ************************************************************************* You are subscribed to the JISC Plagiarism mailing list. To Unsubscribe, change your subscription options, or access list archives, visit http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/PLAGIARISM.html *************************************************************************