From the Chronicle of Higher Education’s Wired blog we learn that Seton Hill will provide an iPad (and a MacBook! …to be replaced with a new MacBook in two years!) to every full-time student.

On the one hand, the Mac fanboy in me is tempted to daydream about what it would be like to teach on a campus where every student could be counted on to have identical (or almost identical) Apple computing devices. On the other hand, the skeptic in me can’t stop thinking about how expensive a proposition this is. Who’s going to pay for it?

Oh, right. The Chronicle answers that question: “students will be charged an additional $500 per semester in fees for the new technology program.” In other words, each student pays an extra $4,000 for their college education (more if they take longer than 8 semesters to earn their degree) and in return gets significantly less than $4,000 worth ...

This Friday On Friday of next week, I’ll be giving a presentation on campus at a technology and pedagogy conference. My topic–surprise!–is ProfHacker. The choice is not as immodest as it might seem, I promise: I was actually asked to talk about the site (and I’m very flattered that I was.)

I plan to talk a little bit about how the site was born and how it’s developed. It is also likely that the “ProfHacker 101 Manifesto” will come up. But what I really look forward to doing is pointing audience members towards our best “How To” posts.

This is where you come in, dear reader. If you have time and inclination

1. Look back over the posts in our “How To” category,
2. Decide which ones that involve pedagogy are your favorites, and
3. Leave a comment below sharing your list of favorites.

Cool? Cool. Thanks!

[Creative Commons licensed flickr photo by Isabel...

“What’s that?” you might ask.

To quote the Finding Ada site, “Ada Lovelace Day is an international day of blogging to celebrate the achievements of women in technology and science.”

Ada Lovelace is an early nineteenth-century example of a hacker, and I don’t just mean in the sense of someone who enjoys working with computers but also in the sense of someone who enjoys tinkering with things, finding solutions, looking for perhaps unconventional workarounds to problems.

In that sense, she embodies the spirit of ProfHacker and deserves a little recognition today.

On her blog, Academic Sandbox, Julie has chosen to write about Bethany Nowviskie this year. Bethany, meanwhile, provides “a tribute to Leah Buechley.”

As for me, well, what follows is a partial list in alphabetical order of women whose work involving information technology and culture has been thought provoking (and...

What’s on your mind?

How’s your semester going?

Do you need advice or feedback about something related to life and work in higher ed?

Do you have advice or feedback to share about something related to life and work in higher ed?

What would you like to see covered at ProfHacker?

Let us hear from you in the comments!

[Creative Commons licensed photo by Flick user cacophonyx.]

While we continue to wait for the ideal academic scheduling app to appear, I thought I’d draw your attention to a few new developments among previously mentioned calendar and scheduling web services. ‘Twould appear that we all benefit when a variety of different developers compete to capture the market for automatic, integrated, sychronizing, multi-device scheduling services. Of course, if you’re perfectly happy with your pencil-and-paper calendar system then you might as well stop reading this post. The rest of you, however, can come with me…

First, if you remember the discussion following my post covering Tungle, then you might remember that one of the drawbacks was the inability to schedule appointments for fewer than 30 minutes. Well, Tungle has just announced that they now allow 15-minute appointments. So there.

Second, Google just announced a new feature for their...

What’s on your mind?

How’s your semester going?

Do you need advice or feedback about something related to life and work in higher ed?

Do you have advice or feedback to share about something related to life and work in higher ed?

What would you like to see covered at ProfHacker?

Let us hear from you in the comments!

[Creative Commons licensed photo by Flickr user floeschie.]

Over the last several weeks, as part of a research project on braille literacy, I’ve been talking with various people who are visually impaired or completely blind. I’ve learned a great deal about living with a disability, and because many of our conversations have covered classroom experiences, I’ve also learned some things about what it’s like to be a student with a disability.

This is not to say that all disabilities are alike, mind you, or that all people with the same disability experience life in the exact same way. However, I’m pretty sure there are enough common elements to allow us to make a few general observations.

Below, I suggest 5 ways in which we can better meet the needs of our students with disabilities.

1. Try to understand more fully what it’s like to have that particular disability

Specifically, what is it like to be a student with that...

What’s on your mind?

How’s your semester going?

Do you need advice or feedback about something related to life and work in higher ed?

Do you have advice or feedback to share about something related to life and work in higher ed?

What would you like to see covered at ProfHacker?

Let us hear from you in the comments!

[Creative Commons licensed photo by Flickr user Sieanas TokioHotel.]