Thanks for your reply mike
And thanks for the nudge to wake me up while sleeping on the job, the practicalities of which, demand me to ask the odd banal question on technology.
I'm glad I give you a few moments of excitement though
It's true that technology is not always improvement, just difference, and having a good knowledge of a wide range of tools is far better than subservience to the latest. It's also tragic that change happens with usually a blatant disregard for what is being lost. I love the word 'Chronocentric' from the Standage book, but perhaps it's better to rephrasing the old proverb
"in the country of constant change, the curator is king"
Jim
-----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
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