I risk boring readers by this barrage of posts on Feedly (Google Reader replacement). If you are not an RSS user, these posts probably make little sense. I promise this will be the last post (unless Feedly gets sold). One issue with Feedly concerns the method used to subscribe to a new feed. A Chrome or Firefox add-on now makes this easy. If this interests you, see this blog post describing a new tool for this purpose.
Google has created an interesting site that summarizes how search works. Â The design of the site is unique and the content explains Google policies.
After learning that Google was dropping Reader, I started to look around. Feedly looks like it is trying to step up and take over. This link explains how to transition. I wonder what will happen to all of the apps built to use Reader as a back end.
Google announced today that it will soon turn off Reader. I am a user, but not directly. I access my RSS feeds organized by Reader with other friendlier apps. My approach was common and this lack of direct use was likely part of the problem. First iGoogle and now Reader.
This link will take you to a Tom Friedman on MOOCs and the future of higher education. Ironic to talk about professors who have a big stage (so does Friedman even when he has a limited background relevant to a topic). I tend to agree with Friedman on many things – the flat world, the reality of international competition, the importance of education. I have mixed reactions to his notions of technology and higher education (technology did flatten the world). Anyway, this is not for me to decide so what I do is offer the link for examination. BTW – the comments are also very good.
It struck me after reading this content and writing this post that my previous post concerned a description of students who struggle with learning in an online environment.
A recent study focused on online courses in Higher Ed (summarized in the Inside Higher Education blog) is focused on the high attrition rate in MOOCs and junior college online courses.
But some groups fared worse than others. Men showed a more negative effect from online courses than did women in terms of both course persistence and grades. Black students’ grades fell significantly more in online courses, as did those of Asian students. Students with stronger academic skills saw their course persistence and grades decline less in online courses than did students with weaker academic credentials.
The researchers concluded that “students who are already doing poorly in college do even more poorly when they take online courses”.
The study reports several interesting findings describing those students likely to struggle online.
