First Blog

We are talking about the future of education on this planet.  It may be worth a few moments' consideration. ------------ Can Online Education Work?  Well, can it?  We are discussing here the future of education on this planet.  Here are a few notes about online learning that may be of interest.  I know the faculty is generally dead-against it, but it is coming , maybe like a plague, maybe like salvation. 'Tis a juggernaut.   It is incumbent upon schools and colleges to make it work.  Administrators think of dollars, faculty think of self-interest.  Compromise is needed. -------------- Online education is here, and it is here to stay.  Many issues, particularly costs, mandate continuance of this new venue.  I'm for it, make no doubt.  But we must be at least a little critical.  So, I mention a few factors, mostly technical with the title, "What is wrong with online education?"  Here are a few factors that speak against the purely online format, bare an

What do Mozart and I have in common? At first blush you might suggest, “Both of you like Mozart’s music,” not adding that, “and it ends there.” Yet, there is common ground. The answer is that ... Mozart and I are both “techies.” It all began in 1698. After hundreds of attempts by dozens of craftsmen, the Italian instrument maker Bartolmeo Cristofori* finally solved all the problems inherent in making a harpsichord with hammers , the Piano Forte. While it is unimportant just what the problems were, the result was the creation of a new instrument with a dynamic range that completely eclipsed the harpsichord. The new sound excited the public; the powerful and rich Medici’s listed one of Christofori’s instruments in a 1700 inventory of instruments. Here was a powerful new tool, hardly touched by new composition. Techniques and rules of composition for it did not exist. The first explorers with the new technology, which included Mozart, would have a great impact.  In the beginning the