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Turn Your Laptop Into an Earthquake Sensor | Comment
Writing Students and Professors Fight to Keep Theses From Being Freely Available Online | Comment [4]
Educause Issues Statement on RIAA's Methods of Catching Music Pirates | Comment
ABC News to Open 5 University News Bureaus | Comment [10]
How a Lawsuit Over Electronic Reserves Could Affect Colleges | Comment [5]
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May 12, 2008
ABC News to Open 5 University News Bureaus
ABC News will open five on-campus, multimedia news bureaus in the fall, Reuters reports.
The news organization will establish “online and broadcast technology” news bureaus at journalism schools at Arizona State and Syracuse Universities, and the Universities of Florida, North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and Texas at Austin. The move is intended to bring younger viewers and reporters into the fold.
Students selected as campus bureau chiefs will be given special multimedia training at ABC News’s headquarters in New York.—Catherine Rampell
Posted on Monday May 12, 2008 | Permalink | Comment [10]May 8, 2008
Research on Connections Between Computer Use and School Violence
A psychiatrist presented research on connections between excessive computer use and school shootings at the American Psychiatric Association’s annual summit on Tuesday.
Dr. Jerald J. Block, a psychiatrist and professor at Oregon Health & Science University, argued that the shooters in the Columbine High School massacre “spent a significant amount of time playing first-person-shooter computer games and creating game levels for others to use,” and that they became “unable to distinguish the boundaries between their virtual lives and their real lives, in effect mixing the two,” according to a news release. His research was published last year in an article for the American Journal of Forensic Psychiatry titled “Lessons From Columbine: Virtual and Real Rage.”
“[A]s they got into trouble with school authorities, limits were put on their use of the computer. This made them react with homicidal rage and suicidal depression,” Dr. Block told WebMD of the Columbine shooters.
Dr. Block has also studied student violence at Virginia Tech, Northern Illinois University, and other institutions.
Other scholars have criticized connections between violence and computer or video game use and theories relating to “Internet addiction.”—Catherine Rampell
Posted on Thursday May 8, 2008 | Permalink | Comment [7]May 7, 2008
UC-Berkeley Marching Band Does Nintendo-Themed Show
This is a few months old, but it’s still pretty cool. Back in November the University of California at Berkeley’s marching band did a Nintendo-inspired half-time show. Check it out:
There’s also, of course, a similar classic from Gordon College, where students performed a live-action version of Super Mario Brothers for a talent show.—Catherine Rampell
Posted on Wednesday May 7, 2008 | Permalink | CommentMay 5, 2008
Computing Group Strives to Get Teenagers Into Computer Careers
The WGBH Educational Foundation and the Association for Computing Machinery are launching a marketing campaign aimed at encouraging college-bound high-school students to pursue careers in computer science. The two-year project, called New Image for Computing, is particularly focused on encouraging Latina girls and African-American boys to get into the field.
The two-year project will use thousands of computer scientists, as well as parents, teachers, and counselors to spread the word that computer scientists work in a variety of settings, not just technology companies. The campaign also seeks to dispel the stereotype that computer scientists are loners and that the acumen required to tackle the field is too daunting.
The project has received a $853,723-grant from the National Science Foundation. The WGBH foundation is an offshoot of WGBH, public television’s Boston affiliate. The Association for Computing Machinery represents computer scientists in academe, industry, and government. —Andrea L. Foster
Posted on Monday May 5, 2008 | Permalink | Comment [3]May 1, 2008
Sparky Awards Theme Announced
The Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition this week announced the Second Annual Sparky Awards, a competition for students to create videos about “to promote the open exchange of information.”
This year’s theme is “MindMashup: the Value of Information Sharing.” Students are asked to create videos no longer than two minutes that “imaginatively portray the benefits of the open, legal exchange of information,” according to a news release. The winning entry will receive $1,000. Last year’s winners can be found here.
Sparc is an international alliance of academic and research libraries that promotes open access to scholarship. It is co-sponsoring the Sparky Awards with the Association of College and Research Libraries, the Association of Research Libraries, Penn Libraries (at the University of Pennsylvania), Students for Free Culture, and the Student PIRGs. —Catherine Rampell
Posted on Thursday May 1, 2008 | Permalink | CommentApril 30, 2008
Google Announces Winners of Scholarships for Female Technology Students
Google recently announced the winners of the Anita Borg Memorial Scholarships, awarded to women who are studying computer science and related fields.
In the U.S., 23 women were given $10,000 academic scholarships, and 32 finalists received scholarships worth $1,000. In Canada, four women are receiving $5,000 scholarships, and 13 finalists will be given $1,000 awards. Students in Australia, New Zealand, and Europe are also eligible for the Anita Borg scholarships, which were established in 2003. For more information on Google’s scholarship programs, click here.—Catherine Rampell
Posted on Wednesday April 30, 2008 | Permalink | Comment [1]April 29, 2008
A Sociologist Says Students Aren't So Web-Wise After All
Eszter Hargittai, an assistant professor in Northwestern University’s sociology department, has discovered that students aren’t nearly as Web-savvy as they, or their elders, assume.
Ms. Hargittai studies the technological fluency of college freshmen. She found that they lack a basic understanding of such terms as BCC (blind copy on e-mail), podcasting, and phishing. This spring she will start a national poster-and-video contest to promote Web-related skills.
Q. Why do people think young people are so Web-wise?
A. I think the assumption is that if it was available from a young age for them, then they can use it better. Also, the people who tend to comment about technology use tend to be either academics or journalists or techies, and these three groups tend to understand some of these new developments better than the average person. Ask your average 18-year-old: Does he know what RSS means? And he won’t.
Q. What demographic groups are less Web-savvy?
A. Women, students of Hispanic origin, African-American students, and students whose parents have lower levels of education, which is a proxy for socioeconomic status.
Q. What are the practical implications of your research?
A. Students have difficulty evaluating the credibility of information online. Students have been told Wikipedia isn’t reliable, but they haven’t been told why exactly. Most students don’t know that wikis can be edited at that moment. Their eyes just open up wide when they find out.
Q. Are there implications for workplace readiness?
A. There are positive outcomes for those who know how to work and employ tech information, and those who lack information will confront a different situation. In terms of a link with demographic differences, those people who seem to be more savvy are the ones who tend to be in more-privileged positions. There will be an increase in social inequality if this divergence continues this way.
Q. What are the challenges for colleges that hope to better educate students about Web use?
A. How do you fit this into the curriculum? Is it supposed to be an academic department, or through libraries? How can you legitimately stand in front of a classroom when the students have an assumption that they know more about technology than you? At the beginning of my classes, I tell my students, “I know you don’t think I know as much as you because I’m older. I assure you, I know way more than you guys about this.” And they sort of smile, but by the end of the class they realize I’m right. —Catherine Rampell
Posted on Tuesday April 29, 2008 | Permalink | Comment [31]April 25, 2008
Games Interfering With Your Studies? There's a Facebook Group for That
As part of our continuing exploration of academic uses for Facebook, I occasionally stumble upon groups that catch my eye. Here are three:
- Students Against Professors Who Don’t Utilize Technology: Part of this group’s mission statement: “DON’T LECTURE NONSTOP FOR AN HOUR, especially in a class of 400+ people.” So far 65 people have joined the group, which was started by students at the University of Texas at Austin.
- World Of Warcraft Is Ruining My Academic Life: Many students play the online game World of Warcraft, and the fact that 135 signed onto this group shows that the game can get in the way of school work. A similar group, Guitar Hero Has Ruined My Academic Career, and I Am OK With It, has 61 members.
- I Learn More From Wikipedia Than My Professors: This group is one of many student groups expressing support for the online encyclopedia that anyone can edit. Its description points out that members “feel as if they should pay tuition to Wikipedia rather than their college.” Ouch.
Share your favorite academic-technology groups in the comments section. —Jeffrey R. Young
Posted on Friday April 25, 2008 | Permalink | Comment [12]Technology Is Key to Zombie-Themed Game of Tag
College students have played elaborate games of tag using toy guns for decades, but the Humans vs. Zombies game makes unprecedented use of the Internet and other communication technology.
The students at Goucher College who devised the rules of the game also created Web-based software to manage game play, and the software has been adopted by students at several other colleges. (See a Chronicle video report on the game to find out who won the latest game at Goucher.)
Every player starts the game with a unique ID number written on an index card that they carry at all times. When a player on the human team is tagged by a zombie, the human must hand over their card to the zombie, and the creature logs on to the game Web site and registers the kill. The player also marks the location of the kill on a Google map of campus.
Players can log in at any moment and see live statistics showing how many humans have become zombies — there are even pie charts and graphs.
Moderators of the latest match at Goucher, which finished on Sunday, even used the campus television station during the game. Students tuning into Channel 10 in their dorm rooms saw messages about the game’s next mission. —Jeffrey R. Young
Posted on Friday April 25, 2008 | Permalink | Comment [3]April 24, 2008
Rochester Institute Students Capture Award for 'Green' Software
Three students at the Rochester Institute of Technology took the top software prize this week in a college technology competition sponsored by Microsoft, called Imagine Cup. The students developed a network of sensors that allow people to monitor how much energy their homes or communities consume. The sensors capture readings about temperature, humidity, lights, sound, carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, and motion — all of which can alert people to appliances and lights they may have left on inadvertently or that don’t work efficiently.
The students who were part of the project are, from left to right: Joe Zhou, a junior, Adam Risi, a sophomore, and Zachery Shivers, a sophomore. The students won a total of $12,000 for their creation and will travel to Paris in July to compete for the Imagine Cup international prize.
The theme for this year’s Imagine Cup was using technology for environmental sustainability. About 16,000 students from more than 125 colleges competed in the event. The finals were held in Los Angeles this week and the winners — a full list of whom is available here — were announced on Tuesday, Earth Day.—Andrea L. Foster
Posted on Thursday April 24, 2008 | Permalink | Comment [1]