Yule Heibel's Library tagged harvard →  View Popular, Search in Google

Sure, university professors provide a service. But are they really just service providers? And if that's all they have turned into, what does it say about the nature of universities? Change, change, change...
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Because "Harvard students are generally pragmatic and hyper-concerned about maximizing their Return On Time Investment," Gandhi writes, they log onto the site... Besides, he says, students no longer have to pay attention to the professor's lecture to learn the subject matter because "much of knowledge has become commoditized on the web." To solve the problem, Gandhi believes professors must "start thinking of themselves as service providers who must constantly innovate to serve students better."
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socialmedia university professors lecturing teaching harvard facebook education

Audio archive now available online:
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Although we email, blog, tweet, and text as if by instinct, too many of us toil in schools and workplaces designed for the last century, not the one in which we live. Using cutting-edge research on the brain and learning Cathy N. Davidson — former Vice Provost for Interdisciplinary Studies at Duke University and co-founder of HASTAC (Humanities, Arts, Science, and Technology Advanced Collaboratory) — shows how the phenomenon of “attention blindness” shapes our lives, and how it has led to one of the greatest problems of our historical moment, and suggests ways we can take control, based on her book Now You See It: How the Brain Science of Attention Will Transform the Way We Live, Work, and Learn.
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berkman harvard cathy_davidson brain attention_economy

Will be live-streamed, Oct. 18 (Tuesday):
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Harvard Professor Yochai Benkler (The Wealth of Networks) is one of the world’s top thinkers on cooperative structures. In his new book, The Penguin and the Leviathan: How Cooperation Triumphs over Self-Interest, he uses evidence from neuroscience, economics, sociology, biology, and real-world examples to break down the myth of self-interest and replace it with a model of cooperation in our businesses, our government, and our lives.
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berkman harvard yochai_benkler altruism self_interest

Interesting. Will it work as well for less quantitative/ more interpretative fields?
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The way the software works is that first the instructor inputs the concept she wants students to discuss. The program then helps create either multiple choice or "open-ended questions that ask for numerical, algebraic, textual, or graphical responses." Students then respond to these questions using electronic devices they're already bringing to class, like a laptop or smartphone.

The instructor can see a snapshot of who "gets" a concept and who still needs extra help, and then pair up students accordingly. The students even receive personalized messages on their devices telling them who to talk to in class, like "turn to your right and talk to Bob," until they master the concept. And, when it's time to study, they can access questions and answers from the class discussions.
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harvard teaching pedagogy lectures good_mag education eric_mazur learning_catalytics

Couldn't agree more with Aaron Swartz and fellow activists:
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"We need to download scientific journals and upload them to file-sharing networks," wrote Swartz.
Maxwell says he released the papers for similar reasons. He says the papers come from the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society and were published before 1923, which means they're in the public domain (his claim has not been independently verified). "This knowledge belongs to the public," he argues. For the sake of scientific progress, Maxwell says, such databases shouldn't keep research under lock and key at all, let alone beyond their copyright expiration, as is the current practice. "Progress comes from making connections between others' discoveries, from extending them, and then from telling people," he says.
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mit_techreview commons creative_commons copyfight patents aaron_swartz harvard research

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Harvard has no glassy campus pond or placid central green, like many universities do. The Yard, which is the closest thing to a traditional campus green, is dotted with buildings. The tight-knit closeness of the University’s structures, the breadth of their styles, the pocket greenery, and the bustling, untamed public square at Harvard’s core make it an unusual campus, one where faculty and students have to interact regularly.
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“The future intellectual direction of Harvard will be linked to its physical planning and architectural path,” Mostafavi said.

“When there is more and more discussion around collaboration and transdisciplinary practices, the question is: What kind of space do you need for that work?” he added.
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art architecture harvard university campus

"Revitalizing Cities is the third of three blog series on social innovation culminating in three Think Tanks organized by the Advanced Leadership Initiative at Harvard University. The other two series explored Innovations in Health Care and Innovations in Education."

cities harvard revitalizing harvard_business reference series

Wise and entertaining lecture about how Aristotle still has lots to teach us.
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Democracy thrives on civil debate, Michael Sandel says -- but we're shamefully out of practice. He leads a fun refresher, with TEDsters sparring over a recent Supreme Court case (PGA Tour, Inc. v. Martin) whose outcome reveals the critical ingredient in justice.
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michael_sandel democracy justice resources aristotle harvard video ted_conference

Description of "Ecological Urbanism," an exhibition at Harvard's Graduate School of Design, March 30 to May 17, 2009.

ecological_urbanism urbanism gsd harvard exhibitions

"The business model – which is another way of saying the underlying purpose – of just about everything is changing right now, and that includes the university and the newspaper."

bob_massie newspapers ideas harvard business_model

Interesting idea by Manifest Magazine (Wahyd) to "replace" Cambridge MA's Out of Town News (which will close 1/1/09) with a print-on-demand shop.

Related to this: I left comments on Scripting.com and Doc Searls' weblog (both blogged this).

manifest_magazine newspapers business_model harvard cambridge_ma

- so much for the myth of disengaged youth; most are paying attention, and they're not happy with what the traditiional parties are dishing up. I think this also indicates unhappiness with the parties' neglect of urban issues.

2008_elections giuliani harvard obama political_parties politics polls usa youth