Smith-Corona Award Nominees

...the electric typewriter award for the IT Director most determined to block anything useful. Here are the top 3 so far:

1. The IT Director who will not let his training staff access the 5,000+ member Tr-Dev group because, he says, "If it's free, it can't be any good, can it?"

2. The IT Director who said, "If SIX people look at streaming video at one time, the ENTIRE state network will crash!" After which he admitted they were blocking all streaming media becuse the HR staff kept getting caught watching soaps at work.

3. The IT director who won't let staff enable the wireless technology on the laptops, so they can't access the Internet while on the road...which was the point of getting the laptops...

OTHERS? Oh please oh please send them to me!

Using MySpace for course hosting

Cheers to NC State University Professor Tim Hoban who, in the face of contrarian administrators, is supporting his "Social Movements for Social Change" course via MySpace. Says Hoban:

"N.C. State's distance education is primarily oriented toward what I would say is pushing information into students' brains and then trying to get them to prove that they've learned it," Hoban says. "I want my students to build relationships, to build friendships and to build trust in one another. No one can show me another tool. I've told the university, if they can show me one, I'll move."