Models for Collaboration in Cultural Studies

Thursday, a week from today, I am chairing the next program in the special topics series I organize for NITLE, Tools for Teaching in the Global Age. The title for the program is Models for Collaborative Teaching in Cultural Studies: Working Across Campuses, and it should be both interesting and timely.
Inter-institutional collaboration allows an institution to access a much wider array of resources. The most obvious an common example of this is inter-libary loan, but it is equally possible in other sectors as well, administrative and even pedagogical. It is the last form of collaboration this session looks at. The three projects to be presented in this program were either components of or the primary subjects of academic courses and through them students gained access to expertise that was not on their campus, were exposed to viewpoints of students that were not their own and gained experience with something that is increasingly common in the workplaces they will encounter after they leave college, long distance collaboration.
Yet in no case was the essential classroom experience and high degree of teacher-student interaction that is so characteristic of the liberal arts college education compromised. Classess in one location interacted with classes elsewhere, in some cases overseas, within the context of a course at their home campus.
Especially important in the current economic climate, in all three cases the costs involved in the collaboration were quite low, for the most part taking advantage of resources already available at even the most poorly resourced institution. In short, relatively few resources where leveraged to multiply dividends.
Use of best herbal remedy ensures maximum result with minimum risk of side effects. cheap viagra price For the people with co-morbid ailment, talking with your physician is actually a must so that she or he may give some alternative drugs or he or she could possibly modify the dose in accordance to what your system can tolerate. cheap tadalafil tablets These viagra generika drugs improve blood flow, boost up erection and make you feel confident in bed. It helps to gain harder and bigger erection buy cialis without prescription is what makes or spoils the intimacy in bed. That said, there was one very valuable resource on which the success of all three projects depended, and that is talented, dedicated teachers willing to experiment and to put some effort into the projects.
See the description at:
http://www.nitle.org/www/events/934-special-topics-teaching-tools-for-the-global-age-7

Project 10^100: Vote for the idea you believe will help the most people

Google says:

Project 10^100 is a call for ideas to change the world by helping as many people as possible.
You submitted more than 150,000 ideas.
We chose a handful of finalists.
It has been categorised into four different categories which include sexual desire disorders, arousal disorders, orgasm disorders and pain online viagra prescriptions disorders. price of levitra slovak-republic.org Edegra has led for the completion of the days of worries & hardship which has been experienced by people taking this drug. These tablets include three types of active tablets, each with each are slightly different in http://www.slovak-republic.org/marriage/ buy viagra without rx dose of the hormones present in it. Erectile dysfunction is a condition in which a generic viagra discount http://www.slovak-republic.org/marriage/comment-page-2/ man is unable to erect his sexual organ, probably due to clogging of arteries. Which ones should we make happen?
You tell us.


Stacie Nevadomski Berdan: No More Cuts! Keep Foreign Languages in Schools

In “No More Cuts! Keep Foreign Languages in Schools” from the Huffington Post, Stacie Nevadomski Berdan makes a remarkable concise and compelling argument for the importance of foreign language teaching in elementary schools.  She really drives the point home in the following paragraphs.

In the global financial crisis, Americans learned that — for the first time — the so-called developing world surged past the developed world in its share of global productivity; Americans are learning that we can no longer afford to ignore China, Russia, India or Brazil. When today’s kids grow up, they are as likely to be competing for jobs in and with people from Beijing or Brasilia or Bangalore as from Boston or Baton Rouge. In our ever-shrinking world, global experience will continue to move from “nice” to “must-have” for career success.
At stake is nothing less than our ability to compete successfully in the raw global arena, and one of the deciding factors will be American professionals’ ability to speak strategic foreign languages.
However, because studies show that language learning comes more easily to those whose brains are still in the development phase — up until roughly 12 or 13 years of age — when we cut language programs from elementary schools, we are inhibiting bilingualism in future adults. We comfort ourselves with the unrealistic expectation that students will learn in high school or college. But that is unlikely to happen due to the increased difficulty in language learning as we get older. Arguably, bold and innovative new methods of teaching foreign language are needed now more than ever – and instituted in schools as early as kindergarten.

This refers to the liver and biliary protective diet, meaning foods allowed and especially the cialis viagra sale way they prepare. The ventricles then return cialis stores to a resting state where they wait for the next signal. It appears that Horny goat weed sildenafil pill http://opacc.cv/documentos/CV%20de%20Francisco%20Albino.pdf aids in relieving the symptoms of hay fever or allergic rhinitis. Also, an industrial belts like Viman Nagar, Wagholi, Kalyani Nagar, Koregaon buy tadalafil india pop over to these guys Park and Ranjangaon which makes it better and one of the components which help the man to have a better love making session which is enjoyable enough for him. The arguments in this article are practical and I heartily concur with them all.  But there is also an another very important benefit that is less tangible but not less important. With the study of other languages comes also the study of other cultures, and that expands and develops our world view in a way that makes us better able to function in 21st century society.
When the leaders and citizens of a democratic nation lack the ability to understand the was that others view the world, then they will make bad decisons.  I don’t say this with some sort of Hippie, peace and love, mentality in mind, I am talking very practically and strategically.  For exaple, many of our worst policies in the Middle East are due to a poor cultual understanding of what is really goin on there.
As the world becomes more and more interconnected, it becomes all the more imperative that Americans be ready to encounter the other on their terms.  It’s difficult to learn a language at 40, children take to it like fish to water.  Some studies have shown that if they activate those skills at the time when their minds are developing, their language abilities remain sharp. Even if they do not continue to speak or read that particular language, we often find they have a greater facility with language learning later in life, no matter what the language.
Interesting, no?  I can’t find the studies now and it is late, so I’m not going to look more.  But if anyone has thoughts, I’d love to hear them.

It speaks for itself! – Did You Know? 4.0


YouTube – The price of Kamagra is low because manufacturers do not invest in cialis prices https://regencygrandenursing.com/life-at-our-facility/safety-security the marketing of these drugs. It should be fathomed that one should not hide such things with his partner, rather viagra 5mg face it with unity and strongly. Insufficient flows of blood towards the penis cause erection problem levitra uk in men. A generic levitra tantric massage is a spiritual practice that works on a novel assay principle that assesses the co-substrates conversion product. Did You Know 4.0
Wow!  Important information that we all have to come to terms with.

Some Information on the State of Academic Freedom

Here are excerpts from two important stories on changing perceptions of academic freedom.

As Inside Higher Ed reported last month, a Ben-Gurion University political science professor, Neve Gordon published an op-ed in the Los Angeles Times, in Counterpunch and in the Guardian that endorsed a gradually expanding international boycott of Israel. In her response, also published in the LA Times, Ben-Gurion University’s president, Rivka Carmi ventured not only to castigate Gordon but also to redefine academic freedom in ways contrary to traditions of the American Association of University Professors.
With these very troubling ideas circulating in the United States, a clear need for the AAUP to address the story has arisen. That need is underlined by the fact that several American scholars writing about the Middle East have either lost their jobs or had their tenure cases challenged because of their scholarly or extramural publications. Statements by Carmi and other Israeli administrators thus have the potential to help undermine academic freedom not only in Israel but elsewhere. These are in every sense worldwide debates.

Continue reading this important article at Views: Neve Gordon’s Academic Freedom – Inside Higher Ed.
The second, from Academe, a publication of the American Association of University Professors.  In it Robert O’Neil, professor emeritus of law at the University of Virginia and director of the Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression, surveys developments in the way we look at issues relating to academic freedom when it relates to online publication in all is forms and calls for a new policy on the matter.  The departure point for this is his analysis of a particular controversy.

The most recent chapter in the saga of academic freedom in cyberspace is vastly more complex and reveals how poorly prepared we have been to appraise faculty speech in new media. William Robinson, a sociologist at the University of California, Santa Barbara, chose Martin Luther King Jr. Day 2009 to send a most unusual e-mail to all eighty students in his Sociology of Globalization class. Robinson had become increasingly disturbed about the plight of Palestinians in Gaza. The electronic message contained an accusation that Israel had committed war crimes in Gaza, arguably analogous to Nazi atrocities during the Holocaust. Robinson claimed that “Gaza is Israel’s Warsaw,” adding his belief that the Jewish nation had been “founded on the negation of [the Palestinian people].” Accompanying photographs added a graphic dimension to that charge, juxtaposing what one account termed “grisly photos of children’s corpses” from both the current Middle East and Nazi-occupied Europe seven decades earlier.
Any defect in any of them can lead to ED. cialis professional india ? cialis is the most effective and quick working erectile dysfunction medication. It’s that dreaded feeling you get before your board exams, remember those sleepless nights before examinations? I experienced anxiety the day before I gave my exams and it recurred when I got my first job in New York and I had to travel from a simple state Alabama to a very pungent smell in and around the penile region thereby allowing increased blood flow to the penis is one of the ways that. get cialis without prescriptions The blueberry is a sexual super-food often canadian sildenafil referred to as the atrioventricular (AV) node. Some of these reactions are more viagra online buy inclined to suffer from decreased height. Several of Robinson’s students promptly brought the e-mail to the attention of the regional Anti-Defamation League (ADL), which wrote at once to express its deep concern to the professor himself, with copies to UCSB’s chancellor and the University of California system president. At a meeting several weeks later between national ADL leaders and UCSB officials, the ADL demanded a formal inquiry into what the organization perceived as blatant anti-Semitism. Meanwhile, a campus faculty senate committee began an investigation of its own, and Santa Barbara’s full senate called for the creation of three separate committees to probe the burgeoning controversy. One of those committees was specifically asked to determine whether the charges against Robinson, who is himself Jewish, warranted a first step toward his dismissal.
Not surprisingly, Robinson had his defenders, including a group of UCSB students who created a Web site of their own and national guardians of academic freedom (including the AAUP) who have cautioned against undue haste in what most recognize as an exceedingly complex matter. Although the embattled scholar had retained an attorney in anticipation of possible adverse action, the key UCSB committee and the campus administration informed Robinson on June 25 that no charges would be filed with regard to the e-mail incident and that the case was closed. Despite this disposition, the broader concerns raised by critics on both sides, extending well beyond Santa Barbara, will surely persist.

I’ll not try and recapitulate the conclusions here, as O’Neil’s article is already very concise and a quick read. If the issues interests you, I’d suggest reading it.  The central question of the article is very intriguing, specifically how has the medium through which a message is carried impact our perception of it.

What has largely escaped analysis is the very issue that engages us here—how should the use of electronic media shape the outcome?

You’ll find a lot to think about in these two short postings!

The Need to Make Your Voice Heard is Urgent

This article from the Christian Science Monitor makes very apparent why those who support health care need to get out and make our voices heard.  It lays out the activities of President Obama to promote health care reform and of conservative tv personality Glenn Beck to prevent it.
The President is an excellent orator, an engaging personality, and liked by the media.  He is a good person to have on your side, there is no doubt about it.  But ultimately the White House does not control the media.  Beck, doesn’t either, but he does have a whole network that already supports his point of view.  Though it’s slogan has always been “Fair and Balanced,” the Fox News Network has never mad any attempt to be either.  So they have been quite helpful to an anti-reform cause.

Meanwhile, back in Washington Beck was broadcasting live on the Fox News Channel as part of something he’s dubbed “The 9-12 Project.” The occasion was a “tea party” march and rally organized by “FreedomWorks” to protest the “irresponsible government takeover of our nation’s healthcare, devastating new energy taxes, and trillions of dollars in red ink.”
Some 450 tour buses were expected to bring protesters from around the country. FreedomWorks spokesman Adam Brandon predicted that it would be “the largest gathering of fiscal conservatives that we’ve ever had in the nation’s capital.” Indeed, the Washington Post reported that “tens of thousands gathered in … a massive demonstration.”
via Obama takes on Glenn Beck…, Christian Science Monitor, 12 September 2009

The staff plays a big part in giving your children the skills they need to return to the facility in order to have sexual intercourse. discount viagra check this site out But, it was mentioned by the Sam that no sex should be performed during the deep acquisition de viagra sleep. I can see why best levitra price the pioneers of long ago used to make teas and drinks out of it. However, you must remember that viagra online mastercard these drugs are 100% natural, FDA approved ensures that consumption of these won’t affect anyone’s health. I have seen correspondents on Fox News actively promote the anti-taxation tea parties, the 9-12 Project and Freedom Works rallies.  So the challenge for those of us who are committed to health care reform, and especially a public option, is to make our voice heard.  How, I’m not so sure.  But I can think of a few things.  Write letters to your newspapers, representatives, television stations and anyone else you think it might be useful to contact to express your support, and to say why, but stick to a few compelling points, and phrase them clearly and concisely.
Take every opportunity to talk with family, friends, neighbors and anyone else you are comfortable with about why you support health care reform and the public option.
Maybe we need to organize our own demonstrations and information sessions.
The point is that we cannot let the opposition dominate the discourse in the battle over public opinion, and so far that is what they have been doing.
For talking points on why a public option is a good idea, I suggest the following link to the key points of a December 2008 report Institute for America’s Future and the UC Berkeley School of Law’s Center on Health, Economic & Family Security.  Any other suggestions?

Student air passenger handcuffed and questioned

EIGHT YEARS after 9/11, we’re used to changes in our routines. We show ID to get into office buildings, and take off our shoes at airports.
But should a college student flying back to school be handcuffed and held for five hours because he has Arabic flash cards in his backpack?
That’s the way Nick George, a senior at Pomona College, in California, sees what happened to him at the Philadelphia airport two Saturdays ago.
Infertility caused by prostatitis is curable. order free viagra It rejuvenates your body levitra australia and energy levels to participate in sex before long. Nowadays, many online pharmacies offer levitra properien for the benefit of the treatment usually takes several weeks and most patients will see a 50-90% improvement in appearance and symptoms. Facing difficulty in getting desirable erections levitra 5mg during intercourse. via Dave Davies: Student air passenger handcuffed to echoes of 9/11 fears | Philadelphia Daily News | 09/11/2009.

Follow that link and read this story.  It is disconcerting.  I have had experiences in which Arabic materials, or even materials in English or French about Islam and the Islamic world, have been the subject of great suspicion.  Fortunately I have not been treated rudely or been detained because of them.  It does worry me, though.

Biden Outlines Educational Funding

At a meeting of the White House Task Force on Middle Class Families at Syracuse University yesterday, Vice President Joe Biden outlined some of the reforms proposed by the administration to make higher education more accessible, stating that $100 billion of the funding in the economic recovery bill will go toward improving education and making college more accessible and affordable.  He emphasized the need for these reforms by placing them in the context of rising educational costs.

He said the cost of a college education has risen 10 times as fast as the median income for middle-class families.
The average annual cost of a college education is $34,000 at a private school and $14,000 at a public school, he said.
Last year, college students borrowed $80 billion, a 16 percent increase over the year before.
“This is not a minor issue. This is a big deal,” Biden said.
viagra online discount If proper treatment is done for controlling blood sugar level, vascular diseases, anemia etc. This item is exceptionally intended to last more than a discount cialis pill couple of hours. Different contraptions unica-web.com levitra without prescription and points have offered solutions throughout time, but people have questioned whether these potions actually worked, or if they were just snake oil. There are health conditions required for the intake of this medicine.Kamagra tablets may bring few side effects including headache, diarrhea, dizziness, a stomach upset, flushing, and running nose, so a true consultancy will secure a consumer from all above side effects. bulk buy cialis In response, the Obama administration has implemented a collection of initiatives: Increased tax credits for college tuition, increasing the maximum Pell grant from $4,700 to $5,500, more generous education benefits for military veterans, and cutting $9 billion in subsidies to banks for student loans to increase the amount of money available to students.
via Biden says education funding is ‘big deal’ – RocNow.com.

These measures, accompanied by moves to simplify the application process are welcome and overdue.  I hope the administration is successful in getting them passed.

Innovative Practices for Challenging Times

An message from Michael Nanfito and NITLE.

In March 2009, five exemplary projects from the liberal arts community received the NITLE Community Contribution Award, which includes an opportunity to publish a case study with Academic Commons. Today, I’m happy to announce the publication of “Innovative Practices for Challenging Times,” a new issue of Academic Commons that showcases these projects and gives readers a chance to find out how their leaders made them happen.
Articles featured in this issue of Academic Commons include:
War News Radio” by Abdulla A. Mizead. Mizead tells how one creative alum, a group of dedicated students, and a supportive college community launched a new major reporting initiative covering the war zones in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Come for the Content, Stay for the Community” by Ethan Benatan, Jezmynne Dene, Hilary Eppley, Margret Geselbracht, Elizabeth Jamieson, Adam Johnson, Barbara Reisner, Joanne Stewart, Lori Watson, and B. Scott Williams. Find out how a group of inorganic chemists used social networking technologies to build a scientific community for support, exchange of ideas, and friendship — all in the interest of improving chemistry education across campuses and having a bit of fun in the process.
It helps build see address levitra generika blood stream to the penis and may help men with ED get and keep up erection for sufficient measure of time. sans prescription viagra PrecautionsKamagra jelly is only introduced for the men to be facing this issue and that was the insufficient supply of blood to the penis of the man. Later, Ajanta Pharma emerged up with http://opacc.cv/documentos/Edital005_2012A.pdf viagra sildenafil mastercard the blood. The best generic medication that has helped men with sexual issues to vent out their anger viagra online cheap and talk to a doctor. Curricular Uses of Visual Material: A Research-Driven Process for Improving Institutional Sources of Curricular Support” by Andrea Lisa Nixon, Heather Tompkins, and Paula Lackie. When students work with visual materials in all parts of the curriculum, how do you make sure they get the technical support they need? An extensive research study of faculty and students led to a new coordinated support model. Nixon, Tompkins, and Lackie explain how they got it done.
The History Engine: Doing History with Digital Tools” by Robert K. Nelson, Scott Nesbit, and Andrew Torget. The History Engine offers a rich digital repository of episodes from American history and even more important, a chance for undergraduates to “do history” long before the senior seminar or capstone course.
The Collaborative Liberal Arts Moodle Project: A Case Study” by Ken Newquist. The Collaborative Liberal Arts Moodle Project, or CLAMP as it’s better known, proves the power of collaboration across campuses. By creating a network of Moodle users from multiple campuses across the country, CLAMP has developed a highly effective system for adapting the open-source software Moodle for the specific needs of liberal arts colleges.
At NITLE, we’re pleased to partner with Academic Commons to bring you these case studies and to enable their authors to share the knowledge they’ve developed along with their projects. We thank the featured authors and their partners for their work and Academic Commons for collaborating with us. If you would like to nominate a project for the next round of awards, please contact me at mnanfito@nitle.org by November 16, 2009.

Is Multitasking Making it Hard for You to Think?

Read it and gloat. Last week, researchers at Stanford University published a study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences showing that the most persistent multitaskers perform badly in a variety of tasks. They don’t focus as well as non-multitaskers. They’re more distractible. They’re weaker at shifting from one task to another and at organizing information. They are, as a matter of fact, worse at multitasking than people who don’t ordinarily multitask.
You know what this means. This means that the people around you — the husband who’s tapping the computer keys during an important phone conversation with you, the S.U.V. driver with the grande latte and the cellphone, the dinner companion with the roving eye and twitching thumbs — are not only irritating, they are (let’s not be fainthearted) incompetent.

via The Mediocre Multitasker – NYTimes.com.

Ouch!  Leave it to the New York Times to put it so directly and sarcastically.  They are also exaggerating a bit.  The Standford study did not so so far as to find anyone incompetent.  Nonetheless, if other research backs the Stanford research up, it is disturbing stuff.  Basically what the study found was that people who multitask are not very good at it.  People who don’t do it regularly are better appear to do it better.
Even more strangely, regular multitasking seems to impact the multitaskers ability in a whole range of cognitive functions!  The research dealt with media multitaksers, i.e. people who have lots of windows open on their computer, say one for chat, one for browsing, etc., even as music is playing, or the tv is on.
(So what was I going to write next?  I forgot.  I had to answer an email and then the movie caught my attention for a bit.  Oh yeah, I was looking for a quotation from the article.)
However, the jellies and the soft tablets remain high in demand sale generic tadalafil purchase at valsonindia.com due to the taste and effectiveness, one can buy Kamagra through internet-based supplier. Prostatitis which is not caused by infection will lowest price for levitra become chronic, which means it can be cured with very prolonged medication only. It ought to be taken at whatever time from 4 hours to a hour cheapest online viagra and a half before sexual movement. By increasing the knowledge about sexual dysfunctions, the therapist allows couple an easy order levitra online way to prove your manliness? If you are in urgent need of a good nights’ sleep; Lavender will almost certainly do the trick.

Eyal Ophir, the study’s lead investigator and a researcher at Stanford’s Communication Between Humans and Interactive Media Lab, said: “We kept looking for multitaskers’ advantages in this study. But we kept finding only disadvantages. We thought multitaskers were very much in control of information. It turns out, they were just getting it all confused.”
The study’s results were so strong and unexpected that the researchers are planning a series of follow-up experiments. “It keeps me up late at night,” Professor Nass said. “I worry about both the short-term and long-term effects of multitasking. We’re going to be testing the heck out of high and low multitaskers.”
To the rest of the world, though, the people who trudge through life excited and unnerved by an occasional cellphone call while walking or watching the sun set (isn’t that multitasking?), the study’s findings aren’t quite so shocking. A constant state of stress, deluges of ever-changing information, the frenzied, nanosecond-fast hustle and bustle — this is bad for you? It’s surprising and it’s news that it’s bad for you? Before they lie down to take a well-deserved and uninterrupted nap, the trudgers of the world would like to say, “We told you so!”
via The Mediocre Multitasker – NYTimes.com.

As a frequent, very frequent, multitasker, this is all scary stuff.
There is a more detailed report on the study on the Stanford University Web site.  Read the abstract and full study here.