Jason Norris

One of the most interesting findings of the study completely neutralizes the stereotype of the antisocial tech geek. "Mobile phone use, internet use, frequency of use, or participating in social networking services, blogging, photo sharing, or instant messaging, was found to have no relationship with the likelihood of face-to-face contact with neighbors." That is, Internet geeks are as likely to know and speak to their neighbors as are non-geeks. Factors such as age, marital/cohabitation status, and gender have a much greater impact on local social activity, actually. - Jason Norris

This is a very good article for insight into one particular learning style--very different from my own style of learning. Also enlightening are the comments at the end of the post. (Personally, I don't think PowerPoint itself is the problem; it's how a teacher uses it.) Carolyn blogs: "...the biggest influence on the quality of the class, and sometimes the most frustrating, is the teaching style of the professor. Some students just learn better from different styles of teaching than others. Recently I came to the conclusion that I do not learn well from classes in which the lectures are based on PowerPoint presentations." - Jason Norris

Online education is a runaway best seller. Its growth rate -- 12.9 percent -- dwarfs the overall pace of academe’s student expansion. More than 25 percent of all students may have taken at least one online class this year, according to a speculative estimate suggested at a distance-education conference that wraps up here today. - Jason Norris

Dozens of colleges — including Amherst, Bates, Carleton, Colby, Vassar, Wellesley and Yale — are embracing student blogs on their Web sites, seeing them as a powerful marketing tool for high school students, who these days are less interested in official messages and statistics than in first-hand narratives and direct interaction with current students. But so far, none of the blogs match the interactivity and creativity of those of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where they are posted prominently on the admissions homepage, along with hundreds of responses from prospective applicants — all unedited. Not every admissions office has been so ready to welcome uncensored student writing. - Jason Norris

While there are plenty of web polling services around where can you create online polls and surveys for free, there are reasons why the form builder in Google Docs rules them all. - Jason Norris

What are the keys to expanding undergraduate classes to include more adults? As the number of adults seeking higher education has increased, the competition to recruit them has become more intense. Although many four-year institutions have enhanced their outreach to adults in recent years, others are still wading into that nontraditional market. - Jason Norris