Ulrich Schrader's Website

Families are not what they once were. Social Media is affecting them, and their vacation choices.

by Online College Courses

Academia is buzzing about MOOCs. What sounds like genteel name-calling is actually a powerful new medium with potential to transform the education system. Indeed, MOOCs and mooks are simply unfortunate homophones but the former is certainly ruffling feathers because their aim is to make higher education more affordable (free, in fact). These Massive Open Online Courses picked up speed and weight like a freight train, with more than five million learners in locations spanning the whole globe. Academic heavyweights like Harvard, Stanford and MIT back the courses, giving the world of online learning a much-needed boost of credibility. [see an infographic at this site]

http://www.onlinecollegecourses.com/minds-behind-moocs

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By Rachel Williams, Central Florida Future

Soon-to-be UCF graduate Stephen McFarlane has witnessed a lengthy list of changes in his 12 years of undergraduate education. The biggest change McFarlane witnessed in that time frame was the increase in technology: from online classes, to communicating online, to even just carrying a laptop. “Online classes were not popular,” McFarlane said about when he first started college in 2001. “There were maybe four or five per degree.” Now, the majority of UCF students have taken online classes. During the 2012-2013 academic year, 74 percent of students took at least one of the 3,576 offered online courses, Thomas Cavanagh, associate vice president of distributed learning, said. “I love them now. If I never had to set foot in a classroom again that’d be fine,” McFarlane said.

http://www.centralfloridafuture.com/news/from-in-class-to-online-student-reflects-on-12-year-journey-1.2829113#.UbTiBefYc3U

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by Steve Caplan, Occam’s Corner

These are trying times for researchers across the globe, and I think it matters not whether one is in the UK, US or anywhere else; the lack of funding is impacting science in many ways, and not for the better. Scientists are running scared, funds for research are becoming scarce, labs are closing, tenure is being denied. I do my best not to project negativity to the burgeoning scientists (students and post-docs) in my own lab, but they are bright enough to understand what is going on: they see that a career in science is a never-ending fight to keep going. Ultimately, this is leading to the attrition of talented young scientists from the academic track. But life as an academic scientist is comprised of the triple-threat: research, teaching and service (administration). And it appears that the life of science educators is also hanging in the balance. MOOCs are on the move.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/occams-corner/2013/jun/06/moocs-massive-open-online-courses

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Eriq Gardner , The Hollywood Reporter, June 14, 2013 Sherlock Holmes is in the public domain. Yet a company that claims it holds the 'rights' to Sherlock Holmes makes threats and enforces ownership by sending messages like this: "do not expect to see it offered for sale by Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and similar retailers. We work with those company’ s routinely to weed out unlicensed uses of Sherlock Holmes from their offerings, and will not hesitate to do so with your book as well." Zorro is public domain. And yet a publishers "have built a licensing empire out of smoke and mirrors." But the biggest scam of all may be the putative copyright over "Happy Birthday." Evidence? "The public began singing 'Happy Birthday to You' no later than the early 1900s." As evidence, the lawsuit cites a January 1901 edition of an Indiana school journal that described children singing the words 'happy birthday to you.'" And yet a company has been asserting a copyright for years, based on a 1924 songbook and a 1935 piano arrangement. [Link] [Comment]

Wenn große Stücke aus dem eisigen Saum der Antarktis herausbrechen, bietet sich ein spektakulärer Anblick. Mindestens ebenso wichtig sind jedoch im Verborgenen ablaufende Vorgänge, haben amerikanische Forscher ermittelt. Mehr als die Hälfte des Massenverlusts erfolgt demnach still und leise, indem das Eis an der Unterseite der Schelfeisdecke schmilzt. Lesen Sie mehr bei Scienceticker Umwelt

http://canadianwayfarer.wordpress.com/2013/05/31/52/, ... And So It Begins, June 13, 2013 My friend Scott Agnew (who I don't know really well, but well enough) has sold his house and all his stuff and is embarking  for the forseeable future on a wandering tour of the world. It's an adventure that reminds me in more ways than one of the Motorcycle Diaries and I'm sure the travels will be equally influential on Scott's outlook and perspective. I wish him well, and I will be following his blog. Godspeed. [Link] [Comment]

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Lou Adler, LinkedIn, June 13, 2013 We hear a lot about how important degrees are to getting a job. But often it never comes up. When people are hired internally or through their network, it's their performance, not their credentials, that resonates. And as this article shows, that's the case for most hiring - companies turn to job postings and resume screening only as a last resort. So while I would not recommend people not get degrees, I would emphasize that it is at least as important - and over time will be more important - to cultivate and work with a network of practitioners. That's why volunteer work, writing and blogging, open source programming, and similar activities are so important to your career prospects. [Link] [Comment]

IBM announce job cuts in response to poor first quarter profit figures.

IBM announce job cuts in response to poor first quarter profit figures.

#Congratulations to Facebook for sticking the proverbial ballpark hot dog up the backside of #Twitter by mimicking the hash tag realm.

#Congratulations to Facebook for sticking the proverbial ballpark hot dog up the backside of #Twitter by mimicking the hash tag realm.

Hello Obama. Can you hear me now? Good.

Hello Obama. Can you hear me now? Good.

Alcohol and Spirits Celebrate More Than Just Drinking

Alcohol and Spirits Celebrate More Than Just Drinking

Craig Federighi joined Apple in 2009 after a break and got strong attraction from audience at Apple's WWDC 2013.

Craig Federighi joined Apple in 2009 after a break and got strong attraction from audience at Apple's WWDC 2013.

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Scott Jackisch , h+, June 13, 2013 It's not exactly a favorable review, or even a fair one, but the value of this article is that it gives the reader a sense of what's in the book (which, ultimately, is the prupose of a good review). "The premise of Lanier’ s new book 'Who Owns the Future' is that big data players are shrinking the economy by leveraging the largest servers to achieve information supremacy and then radiating risk out into the world." This is a really interesting concept - we are already familiar with the idea of 'the winner of an all-or-nothing contest' in a network; that was one of the main ideas in Albert-Lá szló Barabá si's model. The idea that they 'radiate risk' is (to me, at least) new. I wish the reviewer had said more about it. [Link] [Comment]