I follow the survey data from the PEW research center because the organization collects data on many issues I believe are important. PEW has just released a summary of the findings they thought were most striking from the surveys they conducted in 2017.
For example, they found that political party was far more influential in determining “political values” than other demographic variables (sex, income, education).
The surveys also indicated that Republicans felt that the news media was much less important as a political watch dog and that higher education was much less important in determining the success of the country.
I find these attitudes bizarre, but I suppose that is because I have more progressive political views.
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Hangout at my place and you are likely to find most of what is available in edtech. I describe it as Cindy’s tech lab. We have plenty of grandkids who we can watch using this technology and Cindy is still in touch with teachers looking for advice.
This is Puzzlets for Dash (Wonder Workshop). Puzzlets for Dash consists of a blue-tooth enabled tray into which a user positions tiles that control a dash. This combination allows young children an easy way to “program” the Dash that does not require a computer or tablet. It is easy for even young children to order the tiles, multiply a given action by a number tile, and add the launch tile to set the Dash in motion.
Many Internet users never knew what RSS was or abandoned RSS in favor of easy to use recommendation platforms such as Twitter. They have given up control of what they experience online as a consequence. This post on The Verge explains why RSS is still relevant and what users miss as a consequence of relying on services such as Twitter.
I recommend Feedly, but there are other options. Take control of your online experience.
When Twitter announced the intention to double the length of tweets allowed, the results were mixed. I thought it was a great ideal especially for those wanting to use Twitter as a chat tool. Other disagreed and threatened to block those who wrote longer tweets.
It seems that the controversy has subsided. I predicted as much. Twitter is mostly a scan experience with any additional time required likely to be negligible.
Buzzfeed shares some data on basic actions such as retweets and likes. Both variables favor longer tweets by a substantial margin.
The FCC will soon vote on net neutrality. It appears the vote will go 3-2 against maintaining neutrality. I have written for several years explaining my opposition to this change (use tag to view previous posts).
This is largely a decision to benefit big business and it is often argued by Pai (FCC chair) that this is a way to encourage innovation. It is not a vote for Internet users or for small Internet companies and providers. A change in present standards will allow providers to control the speed of access to specific online services and possibly whether you can see what you want to see. These changes benefit those established providers able to pay for a fast lane. If you live in many parts of the country, you have no choice in who your provider is so you are completely at the mercy of the priorities of that provider. The Internet and Internet services were not built by these large companies. Simply put, they control the “last mile” that allows you to connect. They do not generate the services and content you use nor are they responsible for the “backbone”.
The FCC ignored the request of 20 million-plus citizens who responded to their call for comment. At this point, your only recourse is to appeal to your senators. Minnesota senators have long been neutrality defenders so my appeal matters little (I did send a note). Contact your senator if you disagree with the repeal of the neutrality standard.
One of the provisions of the Republican tax bill as presently configured would eliminate the forgiveness of a tax on the money graduate students receive as tuition waivers. I understand this is but one of the perks the proposal wants to remove and there are many things on this list that are considered loopholes.
Let me explain this issue from my perspective of working with graduate students and being an administrator in a program and attempting to attract the highest possible quality of students. The meaning of “graduate student” covers a lot of territory. The group of students I have in mind are full-time students spending 4-5 or so years in graduate school after completing their undergraduate studies. Start with a recognition that this is what it takes to make yourself employable in many fields. After 9+ years of education, it would not be unusual for a PhD to start as a junior faculty member making say 60k a year. If full-time graduate students are lucky they are paid as teaching assistants or research assistants. The value of this job (considered 1/2 time employment) could be 15k-20k in many fields at many institutions. Additional employment is strongly discouraged and keeping an assistantship may be a competitive process so it is risky to try to double dip. It is pretty difficult to live on this salary and certainly not possible to offer much in support of a family.
The tuition waiver is offered as a way to sweeten the pot. My interpretation would be that most departments make no effort to meet the cost of instruction based on the income from graduate courses. Depending on the program, working with graduate students is very much a mentoring and craft business. For example, I oversaw a graduate program in clinical psychology. This program was limited by the accrediting agency to taking 1 student per licensed clinical psychologist per year. My department made a very heavy faculty investment the training of clinical psychologists (7 of 18 faculty were clinical). You don’t much tuition money out of 28 clinical students (4 years x 7 students) and the number of courses that are involved requires that some of the student time be used to support undergraduate instruction (mostly laboratories and discussion sections to lower class size) and research activities to bring the budget down to a reasonable level.
So, why is the tuition waiver an issue. So students are paid say $18,000 a year – this is taxed. The cost of tuition is higher for graduate courses and out of state students could be charged say $40,000 in tuition (in state could be much lower, but remember the goal when you take few students is to get the best students you can). So, a student with an income of <20,000 and high student debt would be expected to pay taxes on $60,000.
Because this would be an impossible burden for so many students, many public institutions would be forced to raise additional money to attract quality students and still be not really improving the situation with departmental budgets. Or, students with more money and not necessarily more talent would be the only students capable of affording graduate education in order to compete for those $60,000 starting academic jobs.
This becomes an inflationary spiral. Aside from funding the most qualified students, higher education in many smaller institutions would have to come up with more than $60,000 to find future professors. The only way to do this would be to raise tuition on undergrads, etc., etc., etc.
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