An Assignment Born out of Insomnia

I could not sleep so I have created the following two discussion assignments for the most boring chapter in my econ 102 class. The credit should be given to Dirk Mateer at Penn State. I am nervous about the Beyonce assignment. Please advise me if I should do it or not?
Here is the link to his other musical ideas.
Assignment 1 The Slope of Demand Curve

Here is a song. Please read or listen to the lyrics and answer the following question.

Having bills to pay makes a number of people turn to crime in the song. When someone is so desperate for money that they they sell their body or steal, what type of demand do they have?

What will their demand curve look like? Will it be more vertical or will it be more horizontal?

Assignment 2 The Elasticity of Demand
Here is a video that has to do with the Elasticity of Demand. Listen or read the lyrics to the following song and answer the following questions:
Is Beyonce's demand for her boyfriend elastic or inelastic?
What did the boyfriend believe was the elasticity of her demand?
Did her elasticity of demand change? (hint: I was such a fool!)
Look at the title of the song what does it have to do with Elasticity?
Caution be polite and remember your posts can be read by others. Do NOT share too much information about your personal life!

New Attempt

I have playing around with this idea of using Google Hangout on Air feature where the hangout is automatically is posted on YouTube. My last attempt documented in this post was not very successful. Today I tested it out using Google Chrome and it worked well. Below is the results:

Using Google + In Class

Here is an idea that I may test out in class. I plan to place my laptop in front of the class and log into Google +.
Next I plan to start a Hangout (See picture below)

 

I will name the Hangout by the date and topic of the class.

I will enable Hangout On Air function which will stream the class live onto my Youtube channel. 

Step 3 I will copy the embed code from Google + into Blackboard

 Allowing students to watch on Blackboard. 

I tested out this idea in my classroom with nobody there. The following video was the result. The sound was not good. The cause of poor sound could be due to 1) my microphone on the computer, 2) Poor wifi network at school 3) poor performance by Google plus.

This post was updated on August 10 with the video of my experiment.

Breaking Down The Silos At Rio Hondo

Yesterday I saw the post by Dr. Vann Priest titled Where Should We Teach? During my drive home I heard a story on the show Market Place on "How the U.S. can fix its political infighting". Toward the end of the story the speaker recommended that our legislators be forced to drink together.

Dubner: The other idea I have is a little bit easier, probably more fun: re-institute mandatory bi-partisan cocktail hour, every night of the week.
Ryssdal: We could do beer. Beer would be all right.
Dubner: We could do beer.

I think this will work at Rio Hondo too. The previous Administration tried to separate us  into various silos of Academic Senate and Faculty Association, CSEA and Faculty, Management and everyone else. We can break down these silos and get to know each other once again by sitting together over a glass of beer or wine. The question is where?

The Platonic Notion of Education

We have been looking for the perfect single way to deliver education. Instead we should be looking for the perfect ways to educate our students.  Different students learn in different ways. I am not talking about learning styles but modes of delivery. When I advocate for various methods of delivering the contents of our discipline to students, I am talking of in person, online and hybrid. The "platonic" notion  of how education is flawed. (in the video skip to the 13 minute). Just because "YOUR" educational experience was one way and "you" succeeded at that game does not mean everyone should be subjected to the same mode of delivery. The search for the "universals" masks the understanding of variability.

Google Plus Possible Uses In Education

An Idea for my Website

Here is an idea for my website. It will be lots of work because I would have to build one page for each chapter.

Click on picture to see larger image

My favorite Economist and a Librarian in 1909

I am reading the biography of my favorite economist Joseph Schumpeter by Thomas k. McCraw. Schumpeter is famous for coining the term "Creative Destruction" ; pointing out the importance of innovation in economics; pointing out how capitalism relies on banker creating money out of nothing, and popularizing the role of the Entrepreneurs in economics.

But this post is not about Economics but about a duel between Schumpeter and a Librarian.

Schumpeter's students complained to him that the librarian forbade them to check out books he had assigned them. After hearing this he goes to the Library and insulted the librarian.

The librarian having his personal character questioned challenges Schumpeter to a duel.

"Neither had great skill with swordmanship. But after much clumsy clashing
of metal... the blade of one hacked a small slice in the shoulder of the
other. The appearance of blood brought ...an end to the duel."

The Librarian lost the duel but was able to leave the field having defended his honor, and the students were able to check out the assigned books.
This happened in 1909. That was 100 years ago. I think we should recreate this event at Rio Hondo.

Where is our face on facebook?

Many of our students are on facebook. Actually many of our colleagues are on facebook (you know who are). I was playing around with facebook the other night and someone invited me to be a member of the Saddleback college facebook group. I accepted and next facebook recommended that I join IVC's (Irvine Valley Colleges) facebook group. I was curious so I did as I was directed and the next day I got a message in facebook.
The message stated that "the drop deadline without a W is September...."
I am wondering when will we get an official Rio Hondo Facebook account?

Are We Going the Way of Newspapers

Here is an interesting piece from the Washington Post titled A Virtual Revolution is Brewing for Colleges.
The following section caught my eyes:

"Colleges, like newspapers, will be torn apart by new ways of sharing
information enabled by the Internet. The business model that sustained private
U.S. colleges cannot survive. "

The article points out that with the invention of online education the barriers to informations have broken down.

"Both newspapers and universities have traditionally relied on selling
hard-to-come-by information. Newspapers touted advertising space next to
breaking news, but now that advertisers find their customers on Craigslist and
Cars.com, the main source of reporters' pay is vanishing. Colleges also sell
information, with a slightly different promise -- a degree, a better job and
access to brilliant minds. As with newspapers, some of these features are now
available elsewhere. A student can already access videotaped lectures, full
courses and openly available syllabuses online. And in five or 10 years, the
curious 18- (or 54-) year-old will be able to find dozens of quality online
classes, complete with take-it-yourself tests, a bulletin board populated by
other "students," and links to free academic literature. "

They also point out that not all students come to college for the sake of learning, and some view education as a comodity with a price tag.

But the demand for college isn't just about the yearning to learn --
it's also about the hope of getting a degree. Online qualifications cost a
college less to provide. Schools don't need to rent the space, and the glut of
doctoral students means they can pay instructors a fraction of the salary for a
tenured professor, and assume that they will rely on shared syllabuses. Those
savings translate into cheaper tuition, and even before the recession, there was
substantial evidence of unmet demand for cheaper college degrees. Online degrees
are already relatively inexpensive. And the price will only dive in coming
decades, as more universities compete.

Cash for Trash & Oligarchy

Why the bad bank idea is bad!

The following is Simon Johnson. He was the Cheif Economist for IMF. Listen to what he has to say.

Not A Generational Gap But a Brain Gap?

Is technology creating a "Brain Gap"? Here is an interesting interview on the show future tense where Gary Small M.D. from UCLA argues that "digital natives" brains, the younger generation which grew up with technology, may be wired differently. To support this claim he conducted various brain scans and saw their brains light up differently than the "digital immigrants", the older generation who did not grow up with all of this technology, as they conducted an Internet search.

I asked our very own Dr Smith, and he was a little skeptical, because he sees evolution as a very slow process. Dr. Smith argues for this study to be valid it has to be conducted across a few generations. Also he pointed out that the differences could be explained by how memory is formed and/or accessed (I am not sure which because I stopped paying attention to what he was saying).

A few points that caught my attention in the interview were the rise in Attention Deficit Disorder (which I may be suffering) and Social Isolation.

More Political Advocacy

Here is a link to the Environmental Defense Fund site that is pushing for passing the Climate Security Act.
This is a very entertaining website. Take a look at this site even if you are against this bill. I have this crazy idea of someday building a site like this for my practice quizzes.

Basic Skill on Your i-pod

Here is an idea for the basic skills group. In iTunes they have these for Math, Reading and Writing.  

These are not Audio files! They are interactive games!

At my last meeting with the Joint Distance Education group I suggested and everyone laughed at my idea of learning on one's cell phone. How about getting ready for the SAT with an i-pod? This is basic skills via distance education.

SAT Prep Reading 2008 Kaplan Test Prep and Admissions Release Date: Jun 20, 2007 Genre: iPod Games

iTunes for Mac and Windows

This message was sent to dismaleducator.rioss@blogger.com. Please note that you have not been added to any email lists. Copyright © 2008 Apple Inc. All rights reserved

Youtube Rio

I saw the following in the Chronicles of Higher Education. It got me thinking about getting the Virtual College to sign up for YouTube Rio. I am not joking. Take a look at the USC site on YouTube! El Paisano can have their videos, and each Division and Department can have their own video pages. Watch the video and you will not be disappointed!

Inserting Music Into My Course

I got an i-pod for my 40th birthday. I have become addicted to this little machine. First I uploaded my CDs (collecting dust in the garage) into i-tunes and onto my little i-pod. Also I discovered the shuffle function on the little machine, similar to the random function on your CD player.

Next, I discovered i-tunes store. No I did not buy anything, but found i-tune U.

I started with some lectures from MIT on Physic by Walter Lewin. He has a cult following both on the MIT campus and now on i-tunes (read previous post). Now I am downloading various lectures on various topics from Stanford, Berkely, MIT, and Duke.

So when you see me listening to my i-pod and pretending to be cool, it is not true. I am actually listening to some lecture. I am really a nerd pretending to be cool!

Today by mistake I left my i-tune on shuffle and after Paul Krugman's (an economist) speach, I was surprised by Rage Against The Machine!

Rage Against The Machine, is a heavy metal band from the late 90's. After the shock of the heavy metal my brain said "hey why don't you play music in class?"

I was thinking of the following senarios:

Everytime a student answers a discussion question correctly, I play music.

If so many students score high on an exam, I can play their music.

This next one is my favorite.

If I see someone napping, I can play Rage Against The Machine!