BrainStream: It's been a while since

It's been a while since I've posted. Been trying to sort things out. You'll be seeing a lot more, I promise ;)

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BrainStream: Ugg. I can't believe I'm

Ugg. I can't believe I'm actually developing a Web site after all these years. It's been nice having my work site as my only responsibility for many months...and since we're a Web standards consultancy, the site is pretty standards-compliant (read: non-flashy). But I just have too much to say and talk about...so I'm afraid it's time to crank this Blog out. This site will change quite a few times over the next few weeks....but mostly because I'm trying to get the design right.

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BrainStream: The Massachusetts Board of Higher

The Massachusetts Board of Higher Education has unanimously decided to require all students to purchase laptops at the state's many colleges and Universities. They will, of course, give vouchers to low income students, those with financial aid, and I'm sure anyone getting scholarships will have their latop as part of the deal. Being the intrepid (read: nosy) soul that I am, I've pestered the plan's chief architect via e-mail and managed to get someone to send me an electronic copy of the plan. It's in powerpoint, but you can still read it. Here it is - note that it's 600K in size. If you're too cheap to buy Office, then download their Powerpoint Viewer.

I'm waiting for the political fallout from this plan to hit the street. UMass Amherst, (my alma mater), is very well-known across New England to have a lot of protest-happy (read: whiny) graduate students. Don't get me wrong...I'm all for a little civil disobedience now and again however these people protest over the pettiest things and often have no concept of real world issues. Unfortunately, it appears that the student newspaper The Daily Collegian appears to be "under construction" so all I can do is watch local WMass news and keep an eye on the UMass-scandal-happy Boston Globe. Who knows...maybe the well-written faculty and staff paper Campus Chronicle will also have some great stuff.

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BrainStream: *sigh* Did I call it

*sigh* Did I call it or what? Here's another Boston Globe article covering scandal within the UMass system. Why can't they ever cover the good stuff?

However, despite past nonsensical articles, this one covers both sides well. I think Bulger has an excellent point about needing to move quickly as it often appears that everything political at UMass seems to go slower than molasses undulating uphill in January. I say this from personal experience of being a student representative in my time at UMass on several IT committees including that of the Faculty Senate. However I also agree with many of the sentiments of the professors. If no academic guidelines have been discussed nor has it been made clear who owns rights to what is taught, then UMass Online will have some serious problems.

I hate to do the big "In my day" speech, but when I first went to UMass I caused havoc being the first undergraduate to have an on-campus Web site at the University, was responsible for the creation of many departmental and division Web sites on campus, and was the only student in my classes who was looking up the e-mails of people who wrote the books and papers I had to read for class and ask them questions. Many professors were still getting used to the whole idea of e-mail and the Web (and this was in 1994-1998), many fearful of having to learn about it.

You can't rush this process without covering the bases needed in order to stem the fears of both the teachers and students. You can't mandate change without their being clear contingencies, guidelines, and comfort level with the process. Otherwise students will suffer. Keep the pace up but don't just address the logistics of getting the systems up and online - take care of the people problems too.

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