Tidbits on September 27, 2011
Bob Jensen at Trinity University

Our cottage was at one time a part of the historic Sunset Hill Hotel Resort
This week I feature a brochure revealing part of the history of this resort and our cottage
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/tidbits/CottageHistory/Hotel/Brochure/Brochure1900.htm   

Question
Why did these grand resorts of New England and Canada play out in the latter half of the 20th Century after thriving for 100-200 years in the windy mountains, cold lakes, and the Atlantic Ocean's shore?
Answer
See my commentary at the bottom of
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/tidbits/CottageHistory/Hotel/Brochure/Brochure1900.htm

 

More of Bob Jensen's Pictures and Stories
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Pictures.htm

 

Blogs of White Mountain Hikers (many great photographs) ---
http://www.blogger.com/profile/02242409292439585691

Especially note the archive of John Compton's blogs at the bottom of the page at
http://1happyhiker.blogspot.com/

Question
Are their trails in our White Mountains of New Hampshire that have ice in summer as well as winter?
See "The Ice Gulch, Would I do it Again" by John Compton, August 5, 2011 ---
http://1happyhiker.blogspot.com/2011_08_05_archive.html

Okay, you might ask, is there really ice in the Ice Gulch, even in August? Yes, there is! The next photo shows one small patch of ice. There were many larger patches, but they were at the bottom of some of those deep gaps that I mentioned above. I took some photos, but none of them really turned out, even with using a flash to illuminate these dark, dank, deep spots.

 White Mountain News --- http://www.whitemtnews.com/

Added Personal Note
Erika broke two rods attached to her lower spine that are now digging painfully into her spinal cord.
On September 29, 2011 she will have her 15th spine surgery
Please pray that she will at last recover from her spinal injury and surgery ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Erika2007.htm

 

Tidbits on September 27, 2011
Bob Jensen

For earlier editions of Tidbits go to http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/TidbitsDirectory.htm
For earlier editions of New Bookmarks go to http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookurl.htm 

Click here to search Bob Jensen's web site if you have key words to enter --- Search Site.
For example if you want to know what Jensen documents have the term "Enron" enter the phrase Jensen AND Enron. Another search engine that covers Trinity and other universities is at http://www.searchedu.com/.


Bob Jensen's past presentations and lectures --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/resume.htm#Presentations   


Bob Jensen's Threads --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/threads.htm

Bob Jensen's Home Page is at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/




Online Video, Slide Shows, and Audio
In the past I've provided links to various types of music and video available free on the Web. 
I created a page that summarizes those various links --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/music.htm

NOVA: Evolution [Flash Player] --- http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/evolution/

What It Feels Like to Fly Over Planet Earth --- Click Here
http://www.openculture.com/2011/09/what_it_feels_like_to_fly_over_planet_earth.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29

Video
"Debt: The First 5,000 Years," by Paul Kedrosky , Kedrosky.com, September 10, 2011 ---
Click Here
http://paul.kedrosky.com/archives/2011/09/debt-the-first-5000-years.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+InfectiousGreed+%28Paul+Kedrosky%27s+Infectious+Greed%29

TEDxSF - Louie Schwartzberg - Gratitude --- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gXDMoiEkyuQ

The Making of a Nazi: Disney’s 1943 Animated Short --- Click Here
http://www.openculture.com/2011/09/the_making_of_a_nazi_disney.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29

The 9/11 Memorial --- Click Here
http://d.yimg.com/nl/ynews/newsmaker/player.html#shareUrl=http%3A%2F%2Fnews.yahoo.com%2Fvideo%23video%3D26271274&vid=26271274&browseCarouselUI=hide

American Flight 11
In My Seat --- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cLj4akmncsA&feature=youtu.be

Remote Control Roundup (why cowboys are now unemployed) --- http://www.youtube.com/embed/NA-ST8nXl4U?rel=0

Richard Dawkins Introduces His New Illustrated Book, The Magic of Reality --- Click Here
http://www.openculture.com/2011/09/richard_dawkins_introduces_his_new_illustrated_book_ithe_magic_of_realityi.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29

Whose Line Is It Anyway? The Complete Improv Series Now Free Online --- Click Here
http://www.openculture.com/2011/09/whose_line_is_it_anyway_improv_series_free_online.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29

National Science Foundation: Disasters [Flash Player] --- http://www.nsf.gov/news/special_reports/disasters/index.jsp

Dangerous Knowledge: 4 Brilliant Mathematicians & Their Drift to Insanity --- Click Here
http://www.openculture.com/2011/09/dangerous_knowledge_4_brilliant_mathematicians_their_drift_to_insanity.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29

Physics to go videos --- http://www.physics.org/article-interact.asp?id=59

125 Great Science Videos: From Astronomy to Physics & Psychology ---
http://www.openculture.com/science_videos

Patriot Guard Riders Drown Out Uncaring Fanatic Westboro Baptist Church Protesters (must watch to the end) ---
http://www.breitbart.tv/patriot-guard-riders-drown-out-westboro-baptist-church-protesters/
Also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westboro_Baptist_Church


Free music downloads --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/music.htm

Web Site Story ---
http://www.collegehumor.com/moogaloop/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=1913584&fullscreen=1

A virtual choir 2,000 voices strong (must watch to the end) --- http://www.wimp.com/choirvoices/
At some point in time, no live choir will be able to rival a virtual choir 

You can also Google Eric Whitacre if you would like to view the entire musical piece.

Sound And Silence: 'Remembering Sept. 11' At The Temple Of Dendur (complete concert) ---
http://www.npr.org/blogs/deceptivecadence/

Iowa Digital Library: Stradivari String Quartet Recordings --- http://digital.lib.uiowa.edu/strad

'Remember To Love': A Sept. 11 Concert From Trinity Church, NYC (Concert Part 1) ---
http://www.npr.org/blogs/deceptivecadence/2011/09/06/140221544/remembering-sept-11-at-trinity-church-nyc

A Romantic Sensation: 'Lucia Di Lammermoor' (Introduction to the Opera) ---
http://www.npr.org/2011/09/09/140333090/a-romantic-sensation-lucia-di-lammermoor

'Porgy And Bess,' Adapted For Modern Times ---
http://www.npr.org/2011/09/13/140332015/porgy-and-bess-adapted-for-modern-times

The Austin City Limits Music Festival & Miles Davis Streaming Online --- Click Here
http://www.openculture.com/2011/09/the_austin_city_limits_music_festival_miles_davis_streaming_online.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29

Greatest Dance Scenes 1921 - 2010! --- http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Tx9mcZldQXU

Andre' Rieu's YouTube Channel --- http://www.youtube.com/AndreRieuTV

There Should Be More Happiness (good jam session after a slow beginning) ---
http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=oXvJ8UquYoo&vq=large

Time to Say Goodbye (The Dubai Fountain cost US$218 million) --- http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=jD69C0y6_J0

When You Feel Like You've Had Enough --- http://dingo.care2.com/cards/flash/5409/galaxy.swf

Copenhagen Flash Mob at the train station - Philamonic Orchestra plays Ravel's Bolero --- http://snipurl.com/bolerocopehnagen
http://www.classicalarchives.com/feature/dont_miss_this.html?utm_content=omega12340comcast.net&utm_source=VerticalResponse&utm_medium=Email&utm_term=Explore%20Flash%20Mob%20in%20Copenhagen%26nbsp%3B&utm_campaign=Classical%20Archives%20Newsletter%20-%20August%2010%2C%202011content

Web outfits like Pandora, Foneshow, Stitcher, and Slacker broadcast portable and mobile content that makes Sirius look overpriced and stodgy ---
http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/mar2009/tc20090327_877363.htm?link_position=link2

TheRadio (my favorite commercial-free online music site) --- http://www.theradio.com/
Slacker (my second-favorite commercial-free online music site) --- http://www.slacker.com/

Gerald Trites likes this international radio site --- http://www.e-radio.gr/
Songza:  Search for a song or band and play the selection --- http://songza.com/
Also try Jango --- http://www.jango.com/?r=342376581
Sometimes this old guy prefers the jukebox era (just let it play through) --- http://www.tropicalglen.com/
And I listen quite often to Soldiers Radio Live --- http://www.army.mil/fieldband/pages/listening/bandstand.html
Also note
U.S. Army Band recordings --- http://bands.army.mil/music/default.asp

Bob Jensen listens to music free online (and no commercials) --- http://www.slacker.com/ 


Photographs and Art

The National Gallery: Virtual Tour --- http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/visiting/virtualtour/ 

The Aurora Borealis Viewed from Orbit (and What Creates Those Northern Lights?) --- Click Here
http://www.openculture.com/2011/09/aurora_borealis_from_orbit.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29

The Largest Black Holes in the Universe: A Visual Introduction --- Click Here
http://www.openculture.com/2011/09/the_largest_black_holes_in_the_universe.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29

TEDxSF - Louie Schwartzberg - Gratitude --- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gXDMoiEkyuQ

A Treasury of World's Fair Art & Architecture --- http://digital.lib.umd.edu/worldsfairs/?pid=umd:2

The Cave of Chauvet-Pont-d'Arc (archaeology) --- http://www.culture.gouv.fr/culture/arcnat/chauvet/en/index.html

Images from University of Illinois at Chicago Library Collections (photograph archive) ---
http://library.uic.edu/home/collections/images/images-from-uic-library-collections

Neue Gallerie: Online Collection (Germany, Austria) --- http://www.neuegalerie.org/collection

University of Illinois at Navy Pier Photographs (1945-1948) --- Click Here
http://photo.lib.uic.edu/cgi-bin/store/imageFolio.cgi?direct=University_Library_Collections/Historic_UIC_photos/Navy_Pier_Campus&img= 

Historic Houston Photographs --- http://digital.lib.uh.edu/cdm4/about_collection.php?CISOROOT=/p15195coll2

Educational Comics Collection --- http://contentdm.unl.edu/cdm4/browse.php?CISOROOT=/edcomics

Earth From Above --- http://justpaste.it/3ky

The Willard Suitcase Exhibit Online (psychiatric, psychiatry, mental illness) --- http://www.suitcaseexhibit.org/indexhasflash.html

Thinking Outside the Box: European Cabinets, Caskets, and Cases (art history, sculpture) --- http://goo.gl/hkMmX

The City That Time Forgot --- http://vlm32.com/savedHTML_2/thecitythattimeforgot.html

Bob Jensen's threads on history, literature and art ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob2.htm#History


Online Books, Poems, References, and Other Literature
In the past I've provided links to various types electronic literature available free on the Web. 
I created a page that summarizes those various links --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ElectronicLiterature.htm

Atlas of Rural and Small-Town America --- http://www.ers.usda.gov/data/ruralatlas/

Free Online Textbooks, Videos, and Tutorials --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ElectronicLiterature.htm#Textbooks
Free Tutorials in Various Disciplines --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob2.htm#Tutorials
Edutainment and Learning Games --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/thetools.htm#Edutainment
Open Sharing Courses --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/updateee.htm#OKI




Now in Another Tidbits Document
Political Quotations on September 27, 2011
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/tidbits/2011/TidbitsQuotations092711.htm           

The booked National Debt on September 27, 2011 was over $14 trillion ---
U.S. National Debt Clock --- http://www.brillig.com/debt_clock/

Video on "Capitalism at Risk," by Dutch Leonard and Lynn Paine, Harvard Business Review Blog, September 2011 --- Click Here
http://blogs.hbr.org/video/2011/09/capitalism-at-risk.html?referral=00563&cm_mmc=email-_-newsletter-_-daily_alert-_-alert_date&utm_source=newsletter_daily_alert&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=alert_date

The January 2010 Booked National Debt Plus Unbooked Entitlements Debt
The GAO estimated $76 trillion Present Value in January 2010  unless something drastic is done.
Click Here |
 http://www.pgpf.org/~/media/PGPF/Media/PDF/2010/03/fiscalsustainabilityGAONationsLongTermFiscalOutlook03032010.ashx?pid={97E10657-8193-4455-871C-4E7A6A9EE084}
 

There are many ways to describe the federal government’s long-term fiscal challenge. One method for capturing the challenge in a single number is to measure the “fiscal gap.” The fiscal gap represents the difference, or gap, between revenue and spending in present value terms over a certain period, such as 75 years, that would need to be closed in order to achieve a specified debt level (e.g., today’s debt to GDP ratio) at the end of the period.2 From the fiscal gap, one can calculate the size of action needed—in terms of tax increases, spending reductions, or, more likely, some combination of the two—to close the gap; that is, for debt as a share of GDP to equal today’s ratio at the end of the period. For example, under our Alternative simulation, the fiscal gap is 9.0 percent of GDP (or a little over $76 trillion in present value dollars) (see table 2). This means that revenue would have to increase by about 50 percent or noninterest spending would have to be reduced by 34 percent on average over the next 75 years (or some combination of the two) to keep debt at the end of the period from exceeding its level at the beginning of 2010 (53 percent of GDP).

 

Peter G. Peterson Website on Deficit/Debt Solutions ---
http://www.pgpf.org/

Bob Jensen's health care messaging updates --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Health.htm




Smart About Money - National Endowment for Financial Education --- http://www.smartaboutmoney.org/

Bob Jensen's personal finance helpers --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/BookBob1.htm#InvestmentHelpers


"15 Years of Cutting-Edge Thinking on Understanding the Mind," Edited by Maria Popova, The Atlantic, September 14, 2011 ---
http://www.theatlantic.com/life/archive/2011/09/15-years-of-cutting-edge-thinking-on-understanding-the-mind/245006/
Bringing Jonathan Haidt, Martin Seligman, Alison Gopnik, Steven Pinker, Philip Zimbardo, and others together between two covers

For the past 15 years, literary-agent-turned-crusader-of-human-progress John Brockman has been a remarkable curator of curiosity, long before either "curator" or "curiosity" was a frivolously tossed around buzzword. His Edge.org has become an epicenter of bleeding-edge insight across science, technology and beyond, hosting conversations with some of our era's greatest thinkers (and, once a year, asking them some big questions). Last month marked the release of The Mind, the first volume in The Best of Edge Series, presenting eighteen provocative, landmark pieces -- essays, interviews, transcribed talks -- from the Edge archive. The anthology reads like a who's who of Brain Pickings favorites across psychology, evolutionary biology, social science, technology, and more. And, perhaps equally interestingly, the tome -- most of the materials in which are available for free online -- is an implicit manifesto for the enduring power of books as curatorial capsules of ideas. Brockman writes in the book's introduction:

While there's no doubt about the value of online presentations, the role of books, whether bound and printed or presented electronically, is still an invaluable way to present important ideas. Thus, we are pleased to be able to offer this series of books to the public.

Here's a small sampling of the treasure chest between The Mind's covers:

In "Eudaemonia: The Good Life" (2004), Martin Seligman, father of positive psychology whom you might recall as the author of Flourish and Learned Optimism, one of our 7 essential books on optimism, explores what he calls the "third form of happiness," which lies in:

...knowing what your highest straights are and deploying those in the service of something you believe in is larger than you are. There's no shortcut to that. That's what life is about. There will likely be a pharmacology of pleasure, and there may be a pharmacology of positive emotion generally, but it's unlikely there'll be an interesting pharmacology of flow. And it's impossible that there'll be a pharmacology of meaning.

In "Moral Psychology and the Misunderstanding of Religion" (2007), psychologist Jonathan Haidt (whose The Happiness Hypothesis you might recall as one of our 7 favorite books on happiness) notes:

[I]t might seem obvious to you that contractual societies are good, modern, creative, and free, whereas beehive societies reek of feudalism, fascism, and patriarchy. And, as a secular liberal I agree that contractual societies such as those of Western Europe offer the best hope for living peacefully together in our increasingly diverse modern nations (although it remains to be seen if Europe can solve its current diversity problems). I just want to make one point, however, that should give constructualists pause: surveys have long shown that religious believers in the United States are happier, healthier, longer-lived, and more generous to charity and to each other than are secular people.
In "Amazing Babies" (2009), psychologist and philosopher Alison Gopnik laid the foundations for her The Philosophical Baby, one of this year's must-read books by TED Global speakers:
We've known for a long time that human children are the best learning machines in the universe, but it has always been like the mystery of the hummingbirds. We know that they fly, but we don't know how they can possibly do it. We could say that babies learn, but we didn't know how.

Harvard's Steven Pinker, whose illuminating insights on violence and human nature you might recall and who penned one of our 5 favorite books on language, wrote in "Organs of Computation" (1997), long before the hype of contemporary quasi-sciences like neuromarketing:

Most of the assumptions about the mind that underlie current discussions are many decades out of date. [L]ook at the commentaries on human affairs by pundits and social critics. They say we're 'conditioned' to do this, or 'brainwashed' to do that, or 'socialized' to believe such and such. Where do these ideas come from? From the behaviorism of the 1920s, from bad Cold War movies from the 1950s, from folklore about the effects of family upbringing that behavior genetics has shown to be false. The basic understanding that the human mind is a remarkably complex processor of information, an 'organ of extreme perfection and complication,' to use Darwin's phrase, has not made it into the mainstream of intellectual life.

Continued in article

Bob Jensen's threads on metacognition are at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/265wp.htm


Open (Free) Textbooks: Computer Science ---
http://www.collegeopentextbooks.org/opentextbookcontent/open-textbooks-by-subject/computerscience.html 

Bob Jensen's threads about open sharing lectures, materials, courses, and videos ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/updateee.htm#OKI


The Floating University --- http://www.floatinguniversity.com/
Thank you Ramesh Fernando for the heads up.

Steven Pinker speaks about the personal rewards that come from learning big ideas ---
http://www.floatinguniversity.com/learn-more-individuals

You don't need to be a student enrolled at a traditional college or university to take a Floating University course with some of the greatest professors from around the world. Not only is Great Big Ideas available to anyone, anywhere, but lifelong learners who subscribe now will have to the opportunity to take the course this fall semester alongside students from Harvard, Yale, and Bard.

Get More Than Just a Class.

Enrollment in Great Big Ideas includes:

* All readings for Great Big Ideas may be purchased in digital form, for an additional fee, from within our e-learning platform.

Bob Jensen's threads on free lectures, videos, and course materials from prestigious universities ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/updateee.htm#OKI


"Psychology’s Treacherous Trio: Confirmation Bias, Cognitive Dissonance, and Motivated Reasoning," by sammcnerney, Why We Reason, September 7, 2011 --- Click Here
http://whywereason.wordpress.com/2011/09/07/psychologys-treacherous-trio-confirmation-bias-cognitive-dissonance-and-motivated-reasoning/


The Digital Revolution and Higher Education --- http://www.pewinternet.org/Reports/2011/College-presidents.aspx

"North Carolina State U. Physics Prof Wins a McGraw Prize for Digital Teaching," by Marc Parry, Chronicle of Higher Education, September 21, 2011 --- Click Here
http://chronicle.com/blogs/wiredcampus/north-carolina-state-u-physics-prof-wins-a-mcgraw-prize-for-digital-teaching/33334?sid=wc&utm_source=wc&utm_medium=en

A North Carolina State University physics professor was honored today as one of three winners of the 2011 Harold W. McGraw, Jr. Prize in Education. The professor, Robert Beichner, “has changed how students learn in the science classroom” through the SCALE-UP project, described as “an approach that uses digital technology combined with innovative teaching approaches centered on hands-on activities and round-table discussions.” More than 100 colleges have adopted the strategy. The other two winners of the McGraw prize were cited for their work in pre-K, elementary, and secondary education: Mitchel Resnick, professor of learning research at the MIT Media Lab, and Julie Young, president of the Florida Virtual School.

Bob Jensen's threads on Education Technology ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/0000start.htm


"A Philosophy of Teaching," by Rob Jenkins, Chronicle of Higher Education, September 20, 2011 ---
http://chronicle.com/article/A-Philosophy-of-Teaching/129060/

Most teaching statements are written by people who—let's be honest—don't really know that much about teaching. Usually the writers are first-time job seekers with, at best, a year or two as a graduate assistant or an adjunct under their belts.

Battle-scarred classroom veterans, unless they happen to be going on the market, rarely write a statement of teaching philosophy. But maybe they should.

My philosophy of teaching has been forged over more than 32 years, 26 of those as an instructor. As a student, I attended a private liberal-arts college and a midsized regional university. I've taught at a large land-grant university, a small rural community college, a large metropolitan community college, and a suburban technical college.

Like everyone in the profession, I came to the job with a number of preconceived notions, based partly on observations of my own teachers, both good and bad, and partly on my perception of how things should operate in a perfect world. Most of those notions proved false or impractical, and the jury is still out on the rest.

In addition, since I also spent 11 years supervising faculty members, my teaching philosophy has been profoundly influenced by my experiences with colleagues. I've had the great good fortune to observe and learn from some of the best teachers in the world. I've also known a few faculty members whose chief contribution to my development was to strengthen my resolve never—ever—to do certain things.

Please note that in sharing my philosophy, I'm not suggesting that it's the definitive approach or encouraging anyone else to adopt it. I'm simply sharing what I've come to believe.

College students are adults. I wrote about that truism in some depth back in August of 2010 ("Welcome to My Classroom"), but it bears revisiting as one element of a more comprehensive philosophy.

People tend to rise or fall to the level that is expected of them. Make it clear that you think students are stupid and, odds are, they will underperform. Act like you expect them to misbehave, and your classroom will probably resemble a war zone. But if you tell students upfront that you consider them to be adults, and then treat them accordingly, most will attempt to live up to the label. That's certainly been the case in my classroom over the years.

Treating students like adults means you allow them the freedoms that adults enjoy—to be late for class, for instance, to miss it altogether, or to leave early if that's what they need to do. At the same time, you make it clear that, as adults, they are responsible for all the material in the course, whether or not they were in class on a particular day.

That approach has profound implications for every aspect of classroom management, from discipline to attendance to late papers. Students like it because they think of themselves as adults and appreciate being viewed that way. (College students despise few things more than being treated as though they were still in high school.) And it's good for professors because it shifts the responsibility for "keeping up" onto the students, where it belongs.

Teaching is performance art. I wish I had coined that phrase, or at least knew who did. I just know that it has become one of my foundational beliefs.

The concept of the teacher as performer, as "the sage on the stage," has fallen out of favor in recent years. But the fact is, we are sages and we are on a stage. How we perform—that is, how we teach—is every bit as important as what we teach.

Moreover, how our students respond to us—and by extension, to our subject matter—depends largely on the quality of the performance we give in class, day in and day out. Want to engage your students, capture their interest, motivate them to do more and be more? Then pay attention to voice inflection and body language, just as an actor would. Practice your timing. Play to your audience. Inject some humor. Entertain.

That doesn't mean you have to make yourself the focal point of the classroom all the time. Class discussions, group work, and other non-teacher-centric strategies can also be effective. But when the curtain goes up and it's your time to shine, go out there and knock 'em dead.

Great teachers may be born, but good teachers are made. The ability to become a great teacher—one who inspires students and seems to connect with them effortlessly—is a gift, an innate talent like musical ability or athletic prowess.

Just like any other gift, it can either be squandered or put to good use. The very best teachers are those who have the gift and have worked hard over many years to further develop it—although we often overlook the hard work because they make being a great teacher look so easy.

Continued in article

Differences between "popular teacher" versus "master teacher" versus "mastery learning" versus "master educator" ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/assess.htm#Teaching

Bob Jensen's threads on metacognitive teaching and learning ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/265wp.htm


"Who Are YOU (as a teacher)?" by Joe Hoyle, Teaching Blog, September 14, 2011 ---
http://joehoyle-teaching.blogspot.com/2011/09/who-are-you.html

Joe lists some famous persons in history that you might try to emulate --- but that might not be you.

There are also the best of the best according to RateMyProfessor ---
http://www.ratemyprofessors.com/topLists11/topLists.html

Accounting Professor Lawrie Gardner comes in at Rank 21 among community college teachers ---
http://www.ratemyprofessors.com/ShowRatings.jsp?tid=390728

Video of how "You" might improve your image with new pairs of shoes
Dr. Kimora of John Jay College, the #2 Highest Rated Professor on RateMyProfessors.com, responds to your comments on Professors Strike Back! ---
http://blog.ratemyprofessors.com/professor-kimora-john-jay-college/#more-2192


Back to School: Free Resources for Lifelong Learners Everywhere --- Click Here
http://www.openculture.com/2011/09/back_to_school_free_resources_for_lifelong_learners_everywhere.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29

Free Video Lecture: Globalization of Capital Flows
Taught by Professor Timothy Taylor, Macalester College M.Econ., Stanford University
http://www.thegreatcourses.com/tgc/special/CapitalFlowsFreeLecture.aspx

Optimizing Brain Fitness: Free Video Lecture on How Your Brain Works
Taught by Dr. Richard Restak, The George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences
http://www.thegreatcourses.com/tgc/special/optimizing-brain-fitness.aspx

The Great Courses --- http://www.thegreatcourses.com/greatcourses.aspx
Most of these are not free courses, but this company makes money because of lecture quality

Bob Jensen's threads on free lectures and videos and course materials from prestigious universities
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/updateee.htm#OKI


"JSTOR Opens Up U.S. Journal Content From Before 1923," by Jennifer Howard, Chronicle of Higher Education, September 7, 2011 ---
 

Users anywhere now have free access to JSTOR’s Early Journal Content, a corpus of scholarly articles published in the United States before 1923 and elsewhere before 1870. That’s about 500,000 articles from 200 journals, according to JSTOR’s announcement.

The digital archive said it encourages “broad use” of the material but asked that users not use “robots or other devices to systematically download these works as this may be disruptive to our systems.” In the announcement, Laura Brown, JSTOR’s managing director, said the move was not prompted by a much-publicized incident this year involving Aaron Swartz, a hacktivist charged with violations related to making unauthorized downloads of millions of JSTOR files.

Continued in article

Jensen Comment
This is good news for historians, although most faculty and students have "free" access due to their college library subscriptions. It won't open up The Accounting Review oldies since, as I recall, TAR commenced in 1925 after a heated dispute over accountics. Accountics lost until about 1960 when it's takeover of TAR commenced (former TAR Senior Editor's Steve Kachelmeiers rough estimated percentage on the AECM for recent years was a 99% quantitative methods  dominance).

A great listing of TAR articles (throughout its history) and other AAA publications is provided by James Martin in MAAW ---
http://maaw.info/AAAMain.htm

 Here's a brief history of the early years of TAR ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/395wpTAR/Web/TAR395wp.htm


"Traders Gone Rogue: A Greatest-Hits Album," by Thomas Kaplan, The New York Times, September 15, 2011 ---
http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2011/09/15/traders-gone-rogue-a-greatest-hits-album/

Traders run amok are often sentenced to pay restitution, in addition to serving jail time or forgoing any future dealings in the securities industry. But few have been held responsible for an I.O.U. as large as the one a French court pinned on Jérôme Kerviel on Tuesday: $6.7 billion.

That works out to the amount his rogue trades ultimately cost Société Générale, The New York Times’s Nicola Clark reports. But how does it equate to other famous (or infamous) traders gone rogue through the years?

It depends how you look at it, said William K. Black, a professor of economics and law at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, who specializes in financial fraud.

“In terms of dollar losses caused, he’s No. 1,” Professor Black told DealBook. “In terms of crushing institutions, he’s not No. 1.”

That’s because Mr. Kerviel did not actually bring down his firm, which other rogue traders have done. While only four people in all of France would be rich enough to pay what Mr. Kerviel’s owes in restitution — according to Forbes magazine’s list of the world’s billionaires, at least — his bank lives on.

So, too, do several other famous miscreant traders.

¶Indeed, while Mr. Kerviel may have succeeded in amassing a fraud of historic magnitude, his rogue counterparts have brought distinction (or shame) upon themselves in other creative ways:.

¶¶ Creating fake identities. John M. Rusnak pleaded guilty in 2002 to faking trades in order to hide nearly $700 million in losses through rogue trades of Japanese yen for Allfirst Financial, which was then a subsidiary of Allied Irish Banks.

¶Mr. Rusnak worked hard to keep his wrongdoing a secret. At one point, in order to trick auditors, he was said to have posed as a fictitious trader, David Russell, with whom he supposedly had dealings. He pulled it off by renting a box at a Mail Boxes Etc. on the Upper West Side in Manhattan; when bank auditors wanted to verify his trades with the supposed Mr. Russell, Mr. Rusnak had them write to that mailbox, where he then replied as if he were the fictitious trader.

¶Allied Irish Banks sold Allfirst Financial to the M&T Bank Corporation of Buffalo shortly after the scandal came to light. Mr. Rusnak, for his part, was released from federal prison last year and has remained out of the headlines since then.

¶¶ Earning clever nicknames.The Sumitomo Corporation of Japan in 1996 lost $2.6 billion because of a rogue trader, Yasuo Hamanaka, the chief of the company’s copper trading operations. Before his rogue trades became public, he had earned the nickname “Mr. 5 Percent” — referring to the share of the world’s copper market he was said to control.

¶Mr. Hamanaka pleaded guilty to forgery and fraud and was jailed until 2005. Paying homage to what made him famous, he told Bloomberg News upon his release that he was “amazed” at how the price of copper had risen while he was incarcerated.

¶Making the best-seller list. In the mid-1990s, Daiwa Bank lost more than $1 billion as a result of a rogue New York-based bond trader, Toshihide Iguchi. Mr. Iguchi was sentenced to four years in prison, which he told The Wall Street Journal was less painful than the life of deceit he was living as a rogue trader trying to cover his tracks.

¶While in prison, he wrote a memoir, “The Confession,” that was widely read in Japan. But after settling in Georgia upon his release, the only work Mr. Iguchi could find was a $10-an-hour job at a furniture-building shop, so he eventually headed back to Japan, where he opened an English school, The Journal reported in 2008.

¶But Mr. Kerviel’s case brought back bad memories. Mr. Iguchi told The Journal that shortly after the French trader was accused, he had nightmares about his own rogue trading.

¶Going Hollywood. Nicholas W. Leeson, a trader for the British investment bank Barings, managed to topple his bank in 1995 as a result of his rogue trading. Based in Singapore, Mr. Leeson lost more than $1 billion through ill-fated bets on Japanese stock prices and interest rates.

¶Mr. Leeson pleaded guilty in Singapore to fraud and forgery and served four years in prison. He is now the chief executive of an Irish soccer club, Galway United.

¶But perhaps best of all, Mr. Leeson managed to carve for himself a place in popular culture. He commanded a reported $700,000 advance for a ghostwritten memoir, “Rogue Trader” (1997), and more recently published a self-help book, “Back from the Brink: Coping With Stress” (2005).

¶His first book was made into a 1999 film starring Ewan McGregor. The film, like Mr. Leeson’s trading practices, was widely panned.

Continued in article

Bob Jensen's threads on securities and trader fraud ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudRotten.htm#InvestmentBanking


As seen on Paul Caron's TaxProf Blog, September 21, 2011 ---
http://taxprof.typepad.com/
Perhaps you have to remember Nixon and Kissinger to appreciate this one.

The New Yorker's Advice for Dating a Tax Lawyer

The New Yorker, Alarm Bells, by Andy Borowitz:

When I’m on a first date, alarm bells always go off if the woman says, “Let’s play Nixon.” This happened a few weeks ago when I was out with a tax attorney from one of the big midtown firms whom I met on OkCupid. I can understand why she wanted to play, because she was totally great at it. She looked scary with her shoulders hunched over, growling about the press and vowing revenge against the people on her enemies list. But as she started screaming about Jane Fonda and Joe Namath, I thought, Did it even occur to her that maybe I wanted to be Nixon and she could be Kissinger? That set off major alarm bells for me, because the last thing I need in my life is someone who’s inconsiderate.


"U.S. Alleges Poker Site Stacked Deck," by Alexandra Berzon, The Wall Street Journal, September 21, 2011 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111904106704576582741398633386.html?grcc=88888&mod=WSJ_hps_sections_business

As professional poker players, Howard Lederer, Chris Ferguson and Rafael Furst got rich by bluffing players out of their money in televised tournaments. Now, the U.S. government alleges that they and their colleagues used this same approach in running one of the world's largest online poker sites.

On Tuesday, the U.S. Justice Department in a civil suit accused Messrs. Lederer, Ferguson and Furst, and another director of the company behind the Full Tilt Poker website, of defrauding thousands of online poker players out of more than $300 million that is still owed to them. The government said that, in total, the 23 owners of the site had taken out $444 million in distributions over the years.

The Justice Department's civil suit against Full Tilt alleges that in 2010, Full Tilt began having trouble accepting new bets from players, thanks to U.S. efforts to crack down on payment-processing services for online gambling. But the U.S. says that Full Tilt's owners kept paying themselves millions of dollars anyway, fraudulently depleting the player funds on deposit with the company.

Enlarge Image FULLTILT_jmp FULLTILT_jmp

"Full Tilt was not a legitimate poker company, but a global Ponzi scheme," said Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara in a statement Tuesday. The U.S. government views online poker operations, at least those that cross state lines, as illegal.

In its civil suit filed in U.S. District Court in New York, the government alleged that Messrs. Lederer and Ferguson received $38 million and $24 million, respectively, in distributions from Full Tilt. It also alleged that a third poker player involved in the site, Mr. Furst, received $12 million and Raymond Bitar, who helped manage Full Tilt, got $40 million.

"Mr. Furst hasn't done anything wrong," said David Angeli, Mr. Furst's attorney. "He always acted in what he believed was the best interest of players and anyone associated with Full Tilt." Attorneys for Mr. Ferguson and for Mr. Bitar had no comment. Attempts to reach Mr. Lederer weren't successful.

In a statement in August, Full Tilt acknowledged that it was having problems processing player money and said it lost $115 million to government seizure and $42 million it says was stolen by a third-party payment processor.

"While the company was on the way to addressing the problems caused by these processors, Full Tilt Poker never anticipated that the DOJ would proceed as it did by seizing our global domain name and shutting down the site worldwide," the company said. It said it was seeking outside investment and was committed to paying players in full.

The accusations against Full Tilt are part of a crackdown that began in April when the Justice Department indicted executives at three major online poker companies, including Full Tilt, on charges of illegal gambling, bank fraud and money laundering. The government sought $3 billion from the companies, shut down their sites and stopped much of the online poker played in the U.S. It also filed a civil suit at the time, which it amended Tuesday to include much more detailed allegations against Full Tilt.

The Wall Street Journal has examined how the owners of Full Tilt played a cat-and-mouse game around the globe to process money from U.S. Internet poker players outside the purview of U.S. authorities.

The government charges have upended an industry that in the past decade became a behemoth online business as Full Tilt and other websites fueled a global poker boom. Full Tilt once hosted 54,000 people in a single online tournament.

The crackdown has shaken the large universe of poker fans. Before the April crackdown, researcher H2 Gambling Capital estimated there were 1.7 million active poker player accounts in the U.S. from players wagering around $14 billion a year online.

In London, Sebastian Fox, an aspiring music producer, said he could earn around $1,200 a month playing poker online. He racked up $8,000 in an account on Full Tilt. On June 29, he said that he tried to withdraw around $2,400 to pay for rent and other living expenses and discovered Full Tilt's website had been closed down, following the U.S. suit and a subsequent raid by authorities in the U.K.'s Channel Islands where Full Tilt is licensed to operate its website.

"I didn't even consider such a big company would be able to go bust just like that," Mr. Fox said.

The U.S. government has long argued that online gambling, including poker, is illegal under the Wire Act, a 1961 law that explicitly prohibits sports betting conducted over electronic communication. The law is less clear about other types of gambling that are outlawed by the Wire Act, say legal experts.

Online poker sites started popping up over a decade ago but took off in 2003 when an accountant named Chris Moneymaker entered an online tournament and later won $2.5 million in the World Series of Poker. His success enticed thousands of new players online and lured entrepreneurs hoping to capitalize on the boom.

Among them was a lanky poker player, Chris Ferguson, nicknamed "Jesus." Mr. Ferguson, who sported a thick, shaggy haircut and had a Ph.D in software engineering, and his colleague Mr. Bitar tinkered with their concept for web poker while they traded stocks in Los Angeles. The idea: recruit stars from the poker world to lure players to a new site.

Continued in article

Jensen Comment
It's hard for me to feel sorry for people that are ignorant enough to play online poker. That's just asking to be ripped off!

Bob Jensen's Fraud Updates are at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudUpdates.htm


"Gazing Into Higher Ed's Future," by Doug Lederman, Inside Higher Ed,  September 22, 2011 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2011/09/22/u_s_report_projects_sharp_rise_in_college_degrees_widening_of_gender_gap

. . .

Postsecondary enrollments will increase nonetheless, the department projects, rising 17 percent, to 22.4 million students, from 2008 through 2019. The flattening in the number of high school graduates will be more than offset, the analysis speculates, by sharp jumps in the number of 25- to 29-year-olds. While that age cohort made up 14.3 percent of all enrollments in 2008, 25- to 29-year-olds will make up 15.3 percent of all students by 2019, the department projects. The overall enrollment increase, while sizable, would actually represent a slowing pace, as total enrollments grew by 34 percent in the period from 1994 to 2008, the analysis shows.

The age of who enrolls would not be the only factor to change meaningfully under the federal projection. While the numbers of full-time and part-time students would increase at the same rate (17 percent) between 2008 and 2019, the analysis finds, the rate of increase for Hispanic and Latino enrollments (45 percent) would greatly outpace those of other racial groups -- 30 percent for black and Asian/Pacific Islander students, 7 percent for white students, and 5 percent for American Indian or Alaska Native students.

And the gender gap, already a concern for many in higher education, would widen: with enrollments of women growing by 21 percent and men by just 12 percent, as the department projects, by 2019 women would make up 59 percent of all postsecondary students, up from the current 57.1 percent.

(One piece of potentially interesting information that cannot be gleaned from the current report is whether the government expects the recent growth of for-profit colleges to continue. The report lumps for-profit and private nonprofit colleges together in a "private" category, and projects that those institutions will see a slight decline between 2008 and 2019 [to 26.4 from 26.9] in the percentage of all students they enroll. William Hussar, an economist at the statistics center, said via e-mail that its officials did not believe that their statistical models were "adequately capturing the historic trends of the data" on for-profit enrollments, so "we decided not to include these projections.")

Continued in article

THE COLLEGE OF 2020: STUDENTS  ---
https://www.chronicle-store.com/Store/ProductDetails.aspx?CO=CQ&ID=76319&PK=N5S11XX

Higher Education Controversies ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/HigherEdControversies.htm


A Hero Named Daisy

Forwarded by Auntie Bev

James Crane worked on the 101st floor of Tower 1 of the World Trade Center . He is blind so he has a golden retriever named Daisy. After the plane hit 20 stories below, James knew that he was doomed, so he let Daisy go, out of an act of love. She darted away into the darkened hallway. Choking on the fumes of the jet fuel and the smoke James was just waiting to die. About 30 minutes later, Daisy comes back along with James' boss, who Daisy just happened to pick up on floor 112.

On her first run of the building, she leads James, James' boss, and about 300 more people out of the doomed building. But she wasn't through yet, she knew there were others who were trapped. So, highly against James' wishes she ran back in the building.

On her second run, she saved 392 lives. Again she went back in. During this run, the building collapses. James hears about this and falls on his knees into tears. Against all known odds, Daisy makes it out alive, but this time she is carried by a firefighter. "She led us right to the people, before she got injured" the fireman explained.

Her final run saved another 273 lives. She suffered acute smoke inhalation, severe burns on all four paws, and a broken leg, but she saved 967 lives. Daisy is the first civilian Canine to win the Medal of Honor of New York City.

September 11, 2011 message from John Ensminger

 Bob—I noticed you’ve been blogging about the WikiLeaks documents. I recently did a number of searches for “canine,” “police dog,” and “dog” on a beta search site and found about 70 documents. I summarized 51 of them in a blog.
http://doglawreporter.blogspot.com/2011/09/wikidogs-canines-in-leaked-us.html 

Most of them involve embassies notifying Washington headquarters about the successes of bomb and drug detection dogs used by other countries but funded, one way or another, by the State Department’s Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (“INL” in the cables). I’ll keep digging and update the blog as I find more. Thanks for keeping me on your email list. You find real gems. –
John

Jensen Comment
Books by John Ensminger --- http://www.amazon.com/John-J.-Ensminger/e/B0033FKZMW


September 13, 2011 Message from Eileen Taylor

Note for those who use Moodle and think their hidden pdfs are truly hidden.

Students may gain access to hidden pdfs on Moodle, even before they are
unhidden.

Here is how:
A student opened up a Chapter 2 pdf solution that had been unhidden. From
there, he went to the address line in the browser and simply changed
the "2" to a "3" to see the Chapter 3 solution. Since all the files are
named in a similar fashion, he figured out the pattern and was able to
access all the chapter solutions. This applies to pdfs that do not have
random file names. Word docs may not be as vulnerable, and random files
names would also solve the problem.

Proud student felt the need to Tweet about his discovery to the world.

I would award the student:
Plus 10 for creativity/innovation
Minus 30 for Tweeting about it

and for us:
Minus 100 for not teaching students how to recognize and respond to an
ethical issue...

Eileen


"Iran arrests 19 people in $2.6 billion bank fraud described as nation’s biggest financial scam," The Washington Post, September 19, 2011 ---
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle-east/iran-arrests-19-people-in-26-billion-bank-fraud-described-as-nations-biggest-financial-scam/2011/09/19/gIQANmXNeK_story.html

Iran’s state prosecutor says authorities have arrested 19 suspects in a $2.6 billion bank fraud described as the biggest financial corruption scam in Iran’s history.

Several newspapers, including the pro-reform Shargh daily, quote Gholam Hossein Mohseni Ejehei as saying more people will be arrested.

Parliament summoned the finance minister and the central bank governor to discuss the case on Monday.

Officials say the fraud involved the use of forged documents to get credit at one of Iran’s top financial institutions to purchase assets including major state-owned companies.

Continued in article

Bob Jensen's fraud updates are at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudUpdates.htm


"Online Search Ads Hijack Prospective Students, Former Employee Says," by Josh Keller, Chronicle of Higher Education, September 7, 2011 ---
http://chronicle.com/blogs/wiredcampus/online-search-ads-hijack-prospective-students-former-employee-says/33047?sid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en

Last year, James Soloway called hundreds of prospective students per day on behalf of a company that placed advertisements on Google and Bing. The ads promised to help students contact the admissions offices of public colleges if they filled out an online form and included their phone number.

He told the students who responded that they would hear from their preferred public college, even though they almost never did. In the meantime, he said, they should consider attending a for-profit college—such as Kaplan University, Grand Canyon University, or the University of Phoenix.

Most of the prospective students were confused. Some hung up. But sometimes, the pitch worked, he says. Some people, especially high-school students, believed he was an educational counselor and gave weight to his recommendations, he says.

The entire process was designed to redirect students who wanted information on a public college to a for-profit college, Mr. Soloway says. “The expectation was that we were not to allow a call to end with a student until we had created three private-school leads.”

The account offers new details about the practices of lead-generation companies that place misleading search ads to lure prospective students. (Click here to download Mr. Soloway’s full description of the call center’s activities.) In July, The Chronicle found dozens of ads on Google and Bing that falsely implied relationships with public colleges in order to get students to give away information that can be sold to for-profits.

Mr. Soloway made calls on behalf of one of those lead-generation companies, Vantage Media, from March to December 2010. The company contracted with a call center run by Mr. Soloway’s employer, Inspyre Solutions.

Representatives of Vantage, Kaplan, and Westwood College did not respond to requests for comment. Vantage officials have previously said that they provide a free service to both colleges and students, and that the company does not mislead anybody.

Mr. Soloway said he is speaking publicly about his former work because he feels bad that he helped to deceive students. He estimates that Vantage’s online marketing efforts brought in at least 2,000 prospects per week to the Winnipeg, Manitoba, call center where he worked.

After learning that students never heard back from the public colleges they were trying to reach—and realizing that he might soon be fired for poor performance—he quit his job and filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission in February about Vantage’s practices.

“I feel bad that I was part of something that took advantage of people, a lot of them kids still in high school,” he says.

Mr. Soloway said he was given a single day of training before starting to work on behalf of Vantage, which made it difficult to advise students on their educational options. For instance, he says he started without knowing the differences between various nursing degrees.

Continued in article

"Colleges Fight Google Ads That Reroute Prospective Students," by Josh Keller, Chronicle of Higher Education, July 31, 2011 ---
http://chronicle.com/article/Colleges-Fight-Google-Ads-That/128414/?sid=wc&utm_source=wc&utm_medium=en

 

Misleading Promotional Sites for For-Profit Universities

For-profit universities provide some free Website services in an effort to lure people into signing up for for-profit programs without ever mentioning that in most instances the students would be better off in more prestigious non-profit universities such as state-supported universities with great online programs and extension services.


I'm bombarded with messages like the following one from ---
http://www.paralegal.net/


Then go to the orange box at http://www.paralegal.net/more/
If you feed in the data that you're interested in a bachelor's degree in business with an accounting concentration, the only choices given are for-profit universities. No mention is made of better programs at the Universities of Wisconsin, Maryland, Connecticut, Massachusetts, etc.


I've stopped linking to the many for-profit university sites like this.
My threads on distance education alternatives are at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Crossborder.htm

Bob Jensen's threads on for-profit universities operating in the gray zone of fraud ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/HigherEdControversies.htm#ForProfitFraud


"Ambitious Provider of Online Courses Loses Fans Among Colleges," by Sara Lipka, Chronicle of Higher Education, September 18, 2011 ---
http://chronicle.com/article/Ambitious-Provider-of-Online/129052/

To students, starting college for $99 a month sounds like a deal. To wonks wrapped up in soaring tuition and declining financial aid, it may sound like a solution.

That's how a company called StraighterLine, which offers online, self-paced introductory courses, became a darling of the industry—at least in theory. Carol A. Twigg, president of the National Center for Academic Transformation and a member of StraighterLine's advisory board, has lauded the idea; Kevin Carey, policy director at Education Sector, has hailed the company's founder, Burck Smith, as a potential revolutionary.

But a revolution is hard to pull off. If StraighterLine is going to transform higher education, it needs mainstream colleges to take it seriously—and that means counting its courses for credit. In the past month, it has suffered on that front. Four of the more-established institutions that had agreed to grant credit have cut ties with StraighterLine. If colleges won't cooperate, Mr. Smith has a plan; he's already talking to state lawmakers, who can make them.

. . .

21 Colleges Remain Partners With StraighterLine

As of August, the following colleges had agreed to accept StraighterLine’s online, self-paced courses for credit. Since then, the four institutions in bold have cut their ties with the company.

American College of Dubai
American InterContinental University
Ashford University
Assumption College
Capella University
Charter Oak State College
Colorado State University Global Campus
DeVry University
Excelsior College
Florida Gateway College
Fort Hays State University
Granite State College
Jefferson Community and Technical College
Kaplan University
La Salle University
Nazarene Bible College
New England College of Business
Potomac College
Thomas Edison State College
Thompson Rivers University
University of Akron
Western Governors University
Western Governors University-Indiana
Western Governors University-Texas
Western Governors University-Washington

Bob Jensen's threads on for-profit university controversies ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/HigherEdControversies.htm#ForProfitFraud


"As "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" Ends, ROTC Returns to Harvard," Inside Higher Ed, September 21, 2011 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2011/09/21/qt#270888

Harvard University welcomed the Navy's Reserve Officers Training Corps program back to its campus after 40 years on Tuesday, as the Obama administration formally ended the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy regarding gay service members in the military, The Boston Globe reported.

Bob Jensen's threads on higher education controversies ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/HigherEdControversies.htm


Professors have become a major part of the problem of declining expectations for student performance

"Lower Education," by Michael Morris, Inside Higher Ed, September 9, 2011 --- Click Here
http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2011/09/09/morris_essay_on_faculty_responsibility_for_decline_in_college_student_standards

Toby (not his real name) flunked a graduate course I taught last year. He failed the in-class assignment (a mid-term essay exam) as well as the out-of-class assignments (a couple of case analyses and a take-home exam). Reviewing Toby’s work was excruciating; extracting coherence from his paragraphs was a futile exercise, even with repeated readings. Theoretical analysis in his writing was virtually nonexistent. Put simply, this was an academic train wreck.

As I interacted with Toby over the course of the term, I kept asking myself, “How did this pleasant young man ever manage to obtain an undergraduate degree?” He certainly had one, awarded by a regionally accredited institution (not mine). And how did he get into yet another institution (my institution, but not my program) to pursue a master’s degree?

Welcome to the world of Lower Education. Toby’s case may be extreme, but it underscores a fundamental reality that shapes a major segment of higher education in the United States: Colleges cannot survive without students, so colleges that have a difficult time competing for the “best” students compete for the “next best” ones. And colleges that have trouble securing the “next best” students focus on the “next-next best” ones, and on and on and on, until a point is reached where the word “best” is no longer relevant. When this occurs, students who are not prepared to be in college, and certainly not prepared to be in graduate school, end up in our classrooms.

This is not startling news. It’s a rare college or university that does not have an academic remediation/triage center of some kind on campus, where an enormous amount of time is spent teaching students skills they should have learned in high school. To be sure, many of these unprepared students drop out of college before graduation, but a significant percentage do make it to the finish line. Some of the latter will have indeed earned their degree through great effort and what they’ve learned from us. But others will have muddled through without displaying the skills we should require of all students. My 35 years of university experience tell me that in these cases faculty collusion is often a contributing factor.

What is the nature of this collusion? In far too many instances, little is required of students in terms of the quality and quantity of their academic work, little is produced, and the little produced is, to put it mildly, graded generously. Some might argue that the mind-numbing proportions of A’s we often see these days, along with the relative scarcity of low grades, is a reflection of more effective teaching strategies being employed by professors, coupled with a growing population of bright students committed to academic excellence. Unfortunately, this uplifting scenario strikes me as much less persuasive than one that implicates factors such as transactional/contract grading (“5 article reviews equal an A, 4 equals a B,” etc.), faculty who wish to avoid arguing with increasingly aggressive students about grades, faculty who believe that awarding high grades generates positive student evaluations, faculty who express their philosophical opposition to grading by giving high grades, and the growing percentage of courses taught by part-time and non-tenure-track faculty members who might see the assigning of a conspicuous number of low grades as a threat to their being re-hired.

One of the most pernicious consequences of this state of affairs is cynicism toward higher education among those most directly responsible for delivering higher education -- the faculty. Research suggests that one of the most powerful sources of motivation for outstanding employee performance is goal/value internalization. This occurs when espoused organizational goals and values are “owned” by organizational members, who then strive to achieve the goals and live up to the values in their work. Colleges and universities have traditionally been in a privileged position with respect to drawing upon this type of motivation, given their educational mission. The beliefs associated with this mission can include a sizable chunk of myth, but as societal myths go, the ones embraced by higher education (e.g., the ability of research, knowledge, and analytical skill to enhance the public good) tend to have high social value.

In the current zeitgeist, however, many faculty are dismayed to see the provision of educational credentials trumping the actual provision of education. (Fifty might not be the new forty, but the master’s degree is certainly the new bachelor’s.) This perception is enhanced by a proliferation of curriculum-delivery formats (weekend courses, accelerated and online programs, etc.) whose pedagogical soundness often receives much less attention than the ability of the formats to penetrate untapped educational markets. It is difficult for a strong commitment to academic integrity to thrive in such environments.

Faculty who are distressed over all of this should not wait for presidents, provosts and deans to rescue higher education from itself. Moreover, regional accrediting bodies, despite their growing emphasis on outcomes assessment, do not typically focus on courses, programs and admissions standards in a way that allows them to adequately address these issues. For the most part it is faculty who teach the classes, design and implement curricula, and, at least at the graduate level, establish admissions policies for programs. What should faculty do? I offer three modest suggestions:

Continued in article

Jensen Comment
In addition to lowered admission standards, an even bigger problem is the grip students have over teachers due to fears teachers have of poor student evaluations, including those acerbic evaluations on RateMyProfessor that are available for the entire world to view ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/HigherEdControversies.htm#GradeInflation


Video
"Debt: The First 5,000 Years," by Paul Kedrosky , Kedrosky.com, September 10, 2011 --- Click Here
http://paul.kedrosky.com/archives/2011/09/debt-the-first-5000-years.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+InfectiousGreed+%28Paul+Kedrosky%27s+Infectious+Greed%29

Jensen Questions
How did the accounting system account for debt 5,000 years ago?
Does care and nurturing human children create debt to parents?

Bob Jensen's threads on accounting history ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Theory01.htm#AccountingHistory


Affirmative Action in the "Extreme"
"U. of Wisconsin Is Accused of Bias Against White Applicants," Chronicle of Higher Education, September 13, 2011 ---
http://chronicle.com/blogs/ticker/u-of-wisconsin-is-accused-of-bias-against-white-applicants/36170

Jensen Comment
The University of Wisconsin fought tooth and nail to keep the data hidden from the public and investigators.

Affirmative action has been much easier and legally defensible in Texas under the controversial 10% rule that basically ignores the comparative academic qualifications of the top 10% of each in-state high school graduating class such that a student with a low admission score competes equally with merit scholar if they are both in the top 10% of their graduating classes. If both choose a flagship university both are assured of admission. The net result at the flagship universities in Texas is to exclude admission to many higher scoring white students who did not make the top 10% of their relatively affluent school districts.
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/HigherEdControversies.htm#AcademicStandards
This is a boon to private universities in Texas that get some top SAT and ACT students who would've otherwise have preferred to go to the University of Texas or Texas A&M but were denied admission because of the 10% rule. The 10% rule in Texas is not a magic affirmative action bullet for 90% of the students who did not graduate in the top 10%.

Officials at the flagship schools in Texas complain that the 10% rule takes admission decisions out of the hands of the flagship universities --- at least to a degree that the universities feel is has negative implications. For example, if the 10% rule fills most admission capacity, this greatly limits admissions of highly qualified out-of-state students and international students. It can also lead to program imbalances where students who prefer to major in Classical Studies might be denied admission in favor of minorities who clog the business schools. It could also harm athletics, although I suspect Texas and Texas A&M have figured out ways to get around this problem for varsity athletics. There may not be enough 350 lb football players or basketball players over seven feet in height in the top 10% of high school graduating classes in Texas.

Not having a 10% rule in Wisconsin means that admission officers had to make more deliberate white student denial decisions when minority students with lower academic qualifications are accepted over white applicants having equal or higher qualifications. The was temporarily decreed illegal in Michigan, but an appeals court recently overturned the law such that the Michigan Supreme Court will now take up the issue of whether this Wisconsin-style affirmative action is to be permanently banned in Michigan. My guess is that the U.S. Supreme Court will ultimately make a decisive affirmative action decision in this regard, but the legal fighting in states may carry on for years before the Supremes take up a decisive case.

It would seem that the legal and political  battle in Wisconsin is about to commence.


"Too Much Higher Education," by Walter E. Williams, Townhall, September 14, 2011 ---
http://townhall.com/columnists/walterewilliams/2011/09/14/too_much_higher_education

Too much of anything is just as much a misallocation of resources as it is too little, and that applies to higher education just as it applies to everything else. A recent study from The Center for College Affordability and Productivity titled "From Wall Street to Wal-Mart," by Richard Vedder, Christopher Denhart, Matthew Denhart, Christopher Matgouranis and Jonathan Robe, explains that college education for many is a waste of time and money. More than one-third of currently working college graduates are in jobs that do not require a degree. An essay by Vedder that complements the CCAP study reports that there are "one-third of a million waiters and waitresses with college degrees." The study says Vedder -- distinguished professor of economics at Ohio University, an adjunct scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and director of CCAP -- "was startled a year ago when the person he hired to cut down a tree had a master's degree in history, the fellow who fixed his furnace was a mathematics graduate, and, more recently, a TSA airport inspector (whose job it was to ensure that we took our shoes off while going through security) was a recent college graduate."

The nation's college problem is far deeper than the fact that people simply are overqualified for particular jobs. Citing the research of AEI scholar Charles Murray's book "Real Education" (2008), Vedder says: "The number going to college exceeds the number capable of mastering higher levels of intellectual inquiry. This leads colleges to alter their mission, watering down the intellectual content of what they do." In other words, colleges dumb down courses so that the students they admit can pass them. Murray argues that only a modest proportion of our population has the cognitive skills, work discipline, drive, maturity and integrity to master truly higher education. He says that educated people should be able to read and understand classic works, such as John Locke's "Essay Concerning Human Understanding" or William Shakespeare's "King Lear." These works are "insightful in many ways," he says, but a person of average intelligence "typically lacks both the motivation and ability to do so." Mastering complex forms of mathematics is challenging but necessary to develop rigorous thinking and is critical in some areas of science and engineering.

Continued in article

The Case Against College ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/HigherEdControversies.htm#CaseAgainst


"Mystery Diagnosis: An Era of Uncertainty for the Health Care Sector," Knowledge@Wharton, September 14, 2011 ---
http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article.cfm?articleid=2847

The U.S. health care sector is experiencing a time of enormous change and uncertainty. Although President Obama's health care reform plan was signed into law last year, several legal challenges to the legislation are working their way through the courts. Questions also remain about whether the law will deliver on its promises of greater access to care and stricter containment of soaring health care costs.

Meanwhile, the pharmaceutical industry is also dealing with a period of insecurity, with generic markets soon opening up for some of the world's best-selling drugs. And although the health care sector is one of the few employment bright spots in a stagnant job market, questions arise as to whether it is in danger of becoming too bloated. Wharton health care management professors Arnold Rosoff, Patricia Danzon, Lawton Burns and Mark Pauly discussed their research on these issues and others during a recent presentation to incoming health care MBA students.

Politics over Policy?

After decades of debate over national health care reform, Wharton legal studies and health care management professor Arnold Rosoff warned that struggles over the Affordable Care Act (ACA), signed into law by President Obama in March 2010, may be far from over. It is uncertain whether the reform legislation, which was passed in a greatly compromised form after years of "partisan wrangling," can deliver on its promises of cost containment and expanded access to health care for the uninsured, Rosoff noted. "But before we get to that, we have to ask, 'Will ACA even stay on the books?'"

Continued in article

Bob Jensen's threads on health care ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Health.htm

 


From the Scout Report on September 9, 2011

Prey (for locating missing phones and computers) --- http://preyproject.com/ 

The Prey application is quite invaluable and it is a fine way to locate a missing phone or computer. After downloading Prey, users can gather information regarding the device's location, hardware, and network status. Also, users can grab a screenshot of what the device is doing at that moment and they can also even take a picture of the potential thief with the device's webcam. This particular version is compatible with those computers running Mac OS X 10.4 and newer, Windows 2000 and newer, and Linux.


Mixtab 1.3 --- http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/mixtab/id438373717?mt=12 

Would you like to keep tabs (literally) on some of your favorite topics and interests? With this highly visual RSS feed aggregator, it is quite easy to do. Mixtab allows visitors to pick from thousands of pre-existing topics and they can use the visual interface to reorder these topics as they see fit. The site for Mixtab has a FAQ area, along with a primer on how to use the application most effectively.


Out in the Pinwheel Galaxy, a rare event takes place Astronomers forgo sleep; eyes fixed on star's explosion
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/space/story/2011-09-07/Astronomers-forgo-sleep-eyes-fixed-on-stars-explosion/50303380/1#.TmjMWp9vWhA  

How to See a Supernova From Your Backyard this Weekend
http://www.universetoday.com/88617/how-to-see-a-supernova-from-your-backyard-this-weekend/ 

A Stellar Explosion In The Big Dipper
http://www.npr.org/2011/09/03/140163733/a-stellar-explosion-in-the-big-dippers-handle 

The Hubble Space Telescope http://hubble.nasa.gov/ 

The Pinwheel Galaxy http://www.ing.iac.es/PR/press/m101.html 

White Dwarfs http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/science/know_l2/dwarfs.html

From the Scout Report on September 16, 2011

Retickr --- http://retickr.com 

The folks at Retickr study the interaction between humans and their computers, and one of their goals is to make these interactions more efficient and productive. The Retickr application allows users to create a customizable streaming feed that can be filled with information customized by creating playlists or source lists. There could be a "work" playlist, populated by sites like CNN or the Wall Street Journal. Then users could also create a "home" playlist, populated by entertainment sites. Retickr is integrated with social media, so visitors can stream updates from Facebook, Twitter, and other networking sites. This version is compatible with computers running Windows XP and newer or Mac OS X 10.3 and newer.

PeerBlock 1.1 --- http://www.peerblock.com 

The PeerBlock application allows users to control who their computer communicates with while connected to the Internet. After a quick installation, users can establish lists of computers they wish to block, and essentially, it blocks unwanted IP addresses. Visitors will note that there is an FAQ area on this site, along with a selection of screenshots. This version is compatible with computers running Windows 2000 and newer.


Glow in the dark cats may lead to important advances in finding a cure
for HIV
Cats That Glow For AIDS Research Join List of Animals That Shine
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2011/09/14/140465088/cats-that-glow-for-aids-research-join-list-of-animals-that-shine

'Green-Glowing' Cats May Help to Fight Against HIV/AIDS
http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/213108/20110913/glowing-cats-mayo-clinic-japan-hiv-aids.htm

The Scientist: Fluorescent Cats Aid Research
http://the-scientist.com/2011/09/13/fluorescent-cats-aid-research/

Glowing Animals: Pictures of Beasts Shining For Science
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/05/photogalleries/glowing-animal-pictures

International Society for Transgenic Technologies
http://www.transtechsociety.org/

The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2008
http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/chemistry/laureates/2008/


From the Scout Report on September 23, 2011

MapQuest 4 Mobile 2.5.2 --- http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/mapquest-4-mobile/id316126557?mt=8 

If you find yourself getting lost on a regular basis or just in need of directions, you may want to download this version of MapQuest 4 Mobile. With this application, users will get voice-guided, turn-by-turn navigational directions to their destination. Users can also check on the current traffic conditions, and MapQuest 4 Mobile also works to modify directions as needed based on such conditions. This version is compatible with iPhone and iPad devices running iOS 3.1.3 and newer and BlackBerry devices (via BlackBerry App World).  


LibreOffice 3.3.4 --- http://www.libreoffice.org/ 

Designed to function as an open source productivity suite, LibreOffice contains a word processing application, a detailed calculator, and the rather powerful "Impress" tool. The "Impress" tool allows users to enhance presentations by adding 2D and 3D clip art, special effects, and transition styles. This version is compatible with computers running Windows 2000 and newer, Mac OS X 10.3 and newer, and Linux


As dams are removed on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington, many arehopeful for the future
Special Reports: Elwha River Valley
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/flatpages/specialreports/elwha/index.html

Elwha ceremony recalls how treaty fight changed Northwest
http://voices.idahostatesman.com/2011/09/19/rockybarker/franks_impromptu_comments_elwha_recognize_treaty_fights

Wild-fish groups to sue over Elwha River hatchery
http://www.chron.com/news/article/Wild-fish-groups-to-sue-over-Elwha-River-
hatchery-2177879.php


Farewell, Dams. Hello, Salmon?
http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/09/20/farewell-dams-hello-salmon/

Olympic National Park: Elwha River Restoration
http://www.nps.gov/olym/naturescience/elwha-ecosystem-restoration.htm

Man to Machine: Peninsula Logging
http://content.lib.washington.edu/cmpweb/exhibits/logging/index.html


Free online textbooks, cases, and tutorials in accounting, finance, economics, and statistics --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ElectronicLiterature.htm#Textbooks


Education Tutorials

The Digital Revolution and Higher Education --- http://www.pewinternet.org/Reports/2011/College-presidents.aspx

Back to School: Free Resources for Lifelong Learners Everywhere --- Click Here
http://www.openculture.com/2011/09/back_to_school_free_resources_for_lifelong_learners_everywhere.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29

Skylight: eTLC Resource Project [Teaching Improvement] ---  http://www.skylight.science.ubc.ca/aboutetlc

From Stanford University
Humanities Research Network (including music and composition)--- https://www.humanitiesnetwork.org/

Educational Comics Collection --- http://contentdm.unl.edu/cdm4/browse.php?CISOROOT=/edcomics

WhyCTE: Career Technical Education --- http://whycte.org/

Smart About Money - National Endowment for Financial Education --- http://www.smartaboutmoney.org/

Free Video Lecture: Globalization of Capital Flows
Taught by Professor Timothy Taylor, Macalester College M.Econ., Stanford University
http://www.thegreatcourses.com/tgc/special/CapitalFlowsFreeLecture.aspx

Optimizing Brain Fitness: Free Video Lecture on How Your Brain Works
Taught by Dr. Richard Restak, The George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences
http://www.thegreatcourses.com/tgc/special/optimizing-brain-fitness.aspx

The Great Courses --- http://www.thegreatcourses.com/greatcourses.aspx
Most of these are not free courses, but this company makes money because of lecture quality

National Association for Gifted Children - STEM --- http://www.nagc.org/index.aspx?id=1484

Education, Demand, and Unemployment in Metropolitan America ---
http://www.brookings.edu/papers/2011/0909_skills_unemployment_rothwell_berube.aspx

Bob Jensen's threads on free lectures and videos and course materials from prestigious universities
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/updateee.htm#OKI

Bob Jensen's threads on general education tutorials are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob2.htm#EducationResearch


Engineering, Science, and Medicine Tutorials

Richard Dawkins Introduces His New Illustrated Book, The Magic of Reality --- Click Here
http://www.openculture.com/2011/09/richard_dawkins_introduces_his_new_illustrated_book_ithe_magic_of_realityi.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29

A Moment of Science (explanations of phenomena) --- http://indianapublicmedia.org/amomentofscience/

The Aurora Borealis Viewed from Orbit (and What Creates Those Northern Lights?) --- Click Here
http://www.openculture.com/2011/09/aurora_borealis_from_orbit.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29

Physics to go videos --- http://www.physics.org/article-interact.asp?id=59

125 Great Science Videos: From Astronomy to Physics & Psychology ---
http://www.openculture.com/science_videos

NOVA: Evolution [Flash Player] --- http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/evolution/

Darwin's original theory of evolution goes online --- http://www.darwin-online.org.uk/

The Largest Black Holes in the Universe: A Visual Introduction --- Click Here
http://www.openculture.com/2011/09/the_largest_black_holes_in_the_universe.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29

Inner Body (Anatomy and Physiology) --- http://www.innerbody.com/

Wings and Seeds - The Zaagkii Project (botany, etymology) ---  http://wingsandseeds.org/

Open Spaces (Wildlife Refuges) ---  http://www.fws.gov/news/blog/index.cfm

Molecular Logic: Browsing Stepping Stones --- http://molo.concord.org/database/browse/stepping-stones/

STEMResources.com --- http://www.stemresources.com/

AccessSTEM --- http://www.washington.edu/doit/Stem/

National Institutes of Health: Science Education: Research & Training --- http://www.nih.gov/science/education.htm

CENSHARE - Center to Study Human Animal Relationships and Environments --- http://censhare.umn.edu/

Chemical Engineering: Process Dynamics and Controls --- https://open.umich.edu/education/engin/che/che466/fall2008

WhyCTE: Career Technical Education --- http://whycte.org/

National Institute of General Medical Sciences --- http://www.nigms.nih.gov/Education/

The Willard Suitcase Exhibit Online (psychiatric, psychiatry, mental illness) --- http://www.suitcaseexhibit.org/indexhasflash.html

International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers Collection: Georgia State University Library [pdf] http://www.library.gsu.edu/spcoll/pages/area.asp?ldID=105&guideID=515

Open Textbooks: Computer Science ---
http://www.collegeopentextbooks.org/opentextbookcontent/open-textbooks-by-subject/computerscience.html 

National Science Foundation: Disasters [Flash Player] --- http://www.nsf.gov/news/special_reports/disasters/index.jsp

HRSA’s Health Professions --- http://bhpr.hrsa.gov/index.html

Design Challenge Projects (Engineering) --- http://www-mdp.eng.cam.ac.uk/nagty/projects.html

Bob Jensen's threads on free online science, engineering, and medicine tutorials are at --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob2.htm#Science


Social Science and Economics Tutorials

Smart About Money - National Endowment for Financial Education --- http://www.smartaboutmoney.org/

CENSHARE - Center to Study Human Animal Relationships and Environments --- http://censhare.umn.edu/

Sophia Smith Collection: Voices of Feminism --- http://www.smith.edu/library/libs/ssc/vof/vof-intro.html

Video
"Debt: The First 5,000 Years," by Paul Kedrosky , Kedrosky.com, September 10, 2011 --- Click Here
http://paul.kedrosky.com/archives/2011/09/debt-the-first-5000-years.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+InfectiousGreed+%28Paul+Kedrosky%27s+Infectious+Greed%29

"Psychology’s Treacherous Trio: Confirmation Bias, Cognitive Dissonance, and Motivated Reasoning," by sammcnerney, Why We Reason, September 7, 2011 --- Click Here
http://whywereason.wordpress.com/2011/09/07/psychologys-treacherous-trio-confirmation-bias-cognitive-dissonance-and-motivated-reasoning/

The Willard Suitcase Exhibit Online (psychiatric, psychiatry, mental illness) --- http://www.suitcaseexhibit.org/indexhasflash.html

National Science Foundation: Disasters [Flash Player] --- http://www.nsf.gov/news/special_reports/disasters/index.jsp

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services: Office of Refugee Resettlement [pdf] http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/orr/

International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers Collection: Georgia State University Library [pdf] http://www.library.gsu.edu/spcoll/pages/area.asp?ldID=105&guideID=515

Open Spaces (Wildlife Refuges) ---  http://www.fws.gov/news/blog/index.cfm

Atlas of Rural and Small-Town America --- http://www.ers.usda.gov/data/ruralatlas/

International Road Federation: Publications --- http://www.irfnet.org/publication.php?id=7&title=IRF Bulletin

HRSA’s Health Professions --- http://bhpr.hrsa.gov/index.html

EthnicNEWz (New England Focus) --- http://www.ethnicnewz.org/en/home

Bob Jensen's threads on Economics, Anthropology, Social Sciences, and Philosophy tutorials are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob2.htm#Social


Law and Legal Studies

Sophia Smith Collection: Voices of Feminism --- http://www.smith.edu/library/libs/ssc/vof/vof-intro.html

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services: Office of Refugee Resettlement [pdf]
http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/orr/

SSRN has updated its monthly rankings of 750 American and international law school faculties and 3,000 law professors by (among other things) the number of paper downloads from the SSRN database.  Here is the new list (through September 9, 2011) of the Top 25 U.S. Tax Professors in two of the SSRN categories: all-time downloads and recent downloads (within the past 12 months):
Thank you Paul Caron for the heads up.

Bob Jensen's threads on law and legal studies are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob2.htm#Law


Math Tutorials

Dangerous Knowledge: 4 Brilliant Mathematicians & Their Drift to Insanity --- Click Here
http://www.openculture.com/2011/09/dangerous_knowledge_4_brilliant_mathematicians_their_drift_to_insanity.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29

John Nash is one of the most famous schizophrenic mathematicians--- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Nash_%28mathematician%29

Bob Jensen's threads on free online mathematics tutorials are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob2.htm#050421Mathematics


History Tutorials

From Stanford University
Humanities Research Network --- https://www.humanitiesnetwork.org/

The National Gallery: Virtual Tour --- http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/visiting/virtualtour/

Belligerent Encounters: Graphic Chronicles of War and Revolution, 1500- 1945
http://www.artic.edu/aic/collections/exhibitions/B-Encounters/index

The Cave of Chauvet-Pont-d'Arc (archaeology) --- http://www.culture.gouv.fr/culture/arcnat/chauvet/en/index.html

Educational Comics Collection --- http://contentdm.unl.edu/cdm4/browse.php?CISOROOT=/edcomics

Sophia Smith Collection: Voices of Feminism --- http://www.smith.edu/library/libs/ssc/vof/vof-intro.html

Neue Gallerie: Online Collection (Germany, Austria) --- http://www.neuegalerie.org/collection

University of Illinois at Navy Pier Photographs (1945-1948) --- Click Here
http://photo.lib.uic.edu/cgi-bin/store/imageFolio.cgi?direct=University_Library_Collections/Historic_UIC_photos/Navy_Pier_Campus&img= 

Images from University of Illinois at Chicago Library Collections (photograph archive) ---
http://library.uic.edu/home/collections/images/images-from-uic-library-collections

Images from University of Illinois at Chicago Library Collections (photograph archive) ---
http://library.uic.edu/home/collections/images/images-from-uic-library-collections

The Willard Suitcase Exhibit Online (psychiatric, psychiatry, mental illness) --- http://www.suitcaseexhibit.org/indexhasflash.html

Thinking Outside the Box: European Cabinets, Caskets, and Cases (art history, sculpture) --- http://goo.gl/hkMmX

A Treasury of World's Fair Art & Architecture --- http://digital.lib.umd.edu/worldsfairs/?pid=umd:2

The Making of a Nazi: Disney’s 1943 Animated Short --- Click Here
http://www.openculture.com/2011/09/the_making_of_a_nazi_disney.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29

The 9/11 Memorial --- Click Here

Open Spaces (Wildlife Refuges) ---  http://www.fws.gov/news/blog/index.cfm

Video
"Debt: The First 5,000 Years," by Paul Kedrosky , Kedrosky.com, September 10, 2011 --- Click Here
http://paul.kedrosky.com/archives/2011/09/debt-the-first-5000-years.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+InfectiousGreed+%28Paul+Kedrosky%27s+Infectious+Greed%29

Boston Private Industry Council --- http://www.bostonpic.org/

The New Jersey Historical Society --- http://www.jerseyhistory.org/

Canada's History-Magazine --- http://www.canadashistory.ca/Magazine.aspx

Bob Jensen's threads on history tutorials are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob2.htm#History
Also see http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ElectronicLiterature.htm  


Language Tutorials

Historic Houston Photographs --- http://digital.lib.uh.edu/cdm4/about_collection.php?CISOROOT=/p15195coll2

Back to School: Free Resources for Lifelong Learners Everywhere --- Click Here
http://www.openculture.com/2011/09/back_to_school_free_resources_for_lifelong_learners_everywhere.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29

Bob Jensen's links to language tutorials are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob2.htm#Languages


Music Tutorials

A virtual choir 2,000 voices strong (must watch to the end) --- http://www.wimp.com/choirvoices/
You can also Google Eric Whitacre if you would like to view the entire musical piece.

Iowa Digital Library: Stradivari String Quartet Recordings
http://digital.lib.uiowa.edu/strad

Bob Jensen's threads on free music tutorials are at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob2.htm#050421Music

From Stanford University
Humanities Research Network (including music and composition)--- https://www.humanitiesnetwork.org/

Greatest Dance Scenes 1921 - 2010! --- http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Tx9mcZldQXU

Bob Jensen's threads on music performances ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/music.htm


Writing Tutorials

Bob Jensen's helpers for writers are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob3.htm#Dictionaries


Updates from WebMD --- http://www.webmd.com/

September 8, 2011

September 9, 2011

  • Bath Salts' Used to Get High Are Now Illegal
  • The Best and Worst States for Long-Term Care
  • CDC: 1,000 Food-Borne Disease Outbreaks in a Year
  • Study: 1 in 4 People Likely to Develop COPD
  • Illegal Drug Use on the Rise in U.S.
  • FDA Advisory Panel Backs Xarelto to Prevent Strokes
  • Heartburn, Reflux Seen in 9/11 Survivors
  • FDA: Brazilian Blowout Hair Straightener Is Dangerous
  • Rheumatoid Arthritis Drugs May Have Small Skin Cancer Risk
  • Breast-Conserving Therapy Gets Boost for Younger Women
  • September 12, 2011

    September 13, 2011

    September 14, 2011

    September 15, 2011

    September 16, 2011

    September 17, 2011

    September 20, 2011

    September 21, 2011

    September 22, 2011

    September 23, 2011

    September 24, 2011


    Optimizing Brain Fitness: Free Video Lecture on How Your Brain Works
    Taught by Dr. Richard Restak, The George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences
    http://www.thegreatcourses.com/tgc/special/optimizing-brain-fitness.aspx




    Web Site Story ---
    http://www.collegehumor.com/moogaloop/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=1913584&fullscreen=1


    Whose Line Is It Anyway? The Complete Improv Series Now Free Online --- Click Here
    http://www.openculture.com/2011/09/whose_line_is_it_anyway_improv_series_free_online.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29


    When You Feel Like You've Had Enough --- http://dingo.care2.com/cards/flash/5409/galaxy.swf


    Forwarded by my friend Dick Haar

    Bad news for you

    To save the economy on September 18, 2011, Obama announced that he is ordering the immigration department to start deporting old people (instead of illegals) in order to lower Social Security and Medicare costs.

    Old people are easier to catch, and will not remember how to get back home!

    I started crying when I thought of you.

    .....see you on the bus.


    Forwarded by Debbie (who likes a good party)

    LIVING WILL FORM.

    I, ____________, being of sound mind and body, do not wish to be kept alive indefinitely by artificial means. Under no circumstances should my fate be put in the hands of pinhead partisan politicians who couldn’t pass ninth-grade biology if their lives depended on it, or lawyers/doctors/hospitals interested in simply running up the bills.

    If a reasonable amount of time passes, and I fail to ask for at least one of the following:
    ______a Cold Beer____ a Scotch and soda ______a Bloody Mary ______a Gin and Tonic _______a Glass of Chardonnay ______a Steak ______Lobster or crab legs ______the remote control ______a bowl of ice cream ______the sports page______Sex ______or Chocolate: It should be presumed that I won’t ever get any better.

    When such a determination is reached, I hereby instruct my appointed person and attending physicians to pull the plug, reel in the tubes, and call it a day. At this point, it is time to call the New Orleans Jazz Funeral Band to come do their thing at my funeral, and ask all of my friends to raise their glasses to toast the good times we have had.

    Signature:__________________________ Date: _____


    I think I had some of these students in class after they went to college

    Forwarded by Maureen

    Children Are Quick 
    ____________________________________

    TEACHER:    Why are you late?
    STUDENT:     Class started before I got here.
    --------------------------------------------------------
    TEACHER:    Maria, go to the map and find   North America    .. 

    MARIA:         
    Here it  is. 
    TEACHER:   Correct.  Now class, who discovered   America ? 

    CLASS:         Maria. 

    ____________________________________ 
      
    TEACHER:    John, why are you doing your math multiplication on the floor? 

    JOHN:          You told me to do it without using tables.. 

    __________________________________________ 

    TEACHER:  Glenn, how do you spell 'crocodile?' 

    GLENN:      K-R-O-K-O-D-I-A-L' 

    TEACHER:  No, that's wrong 

    GLENN:       Maybe it is wrong, but you asked me how I spell it.   

    (I  Love this child) 

    ____________________________________________ 

    TEACHER:   Donald, what is the chemical formula for water? 

    DONALD:     H I J K L M N O. 

    TEACHER:   What are you talking about? 

    DONALD:    Yesterday you said it's H to O.   
    __________________________________ 

    TEACHER:   Winnie, name one important thing we have today that we didn't have ten years ago. 

    WINNIE:       Me! 

    __________________________________________   

    TEACHER:   Glen, why do you always get so dirty? 

    GLEN:   
           Well, I'm a  lot closer to the ground than you are.   
    _______________________________________ 

    TEACHER:     Millie, give me a sentence starting with '  I.  ' 

    MILLIE:         I  is.. 

    TEACHER:     No, Millie..... Always say, 'I  am.' 

    MILLIE:         All right...  'I am the ninth letter of the alphabet.' 
          
    ________________________________ 

    TEACHER:    George Washington not only chopped down his father's cherry tree, but also admitted it.   Now, Louie, do you know why his father didn't punish him? 

    LOUIS:           Because George still had  the axe in his hand..... 
        
    ______________________________________   

    TEACHER:    Now, Simon , tell me frankly, do you say prayers before eating? 

    SIMON:         No sir, I don't have to, my Mom is a good cook.   
    ______________________________ 

    TEACHER:       Clyde , your  composition on 'My Dog' is exactly the same as your   brother's..   Did you copy his? 

    CLYDE   :         No, sir. It's the same dog.   
      
     

    (I want to adopt this kid!!!) 

    ___________________________________ 
    TEACHER:    Harold, what do you call a person who keeps on talking when people
    are no longer  interested? 
    HAROLD:     A teacher 



    Tidbits Archives --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/TidbitsDirectory.htm

    Click here to search Bob Jensen's web site if you have key words to enter --- Search Site.
    For example if you want to know what Jensen documents have the term "Enron" enter the phrase Jensen AND Enron. Another search engine that covers Trinity and other universities is at http://www.searchedu.com/

    Find a College
    College Atlas --- http://www.collegeatlas.org/
    Among other things the above site provides acceptance rate percentages
    Online Distance Education Training and Education --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Crossborder.htm
    For-Profit Universities Operating in the Gray Zone of Fraud  (College, Inc.) --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/HigherEdControversies.htm#ForProfitFraud

    Shielding Against Validity Challenges in Plato's Cave ---
    http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/TheoryTAR.htm

    What went wrong in accounting/accountics research?  ---
    http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/theory01.htm#WhatWentWrong

    The Sad State of Accountancy Doctoral Programs That Do Not Appeal to Most Accountants ---
    http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/theory01.htm#DoctoralPrograms

    AN ANALYSIS OF THE EVOLUTION OF RESEARCH CONTRIBUTIONS BY THE ACCOUNTING REVIEW: 1926-2005 ---
    http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/395wpTAR/Web/TAR395wp.htm#_msocom_1

    Bob Jensen's threads on accounting theory ---
    http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/theory01.htm

    Tom Lehrer on Mathematical Models and Statistics ---
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gfZWyUXn3So

    Systemic problems of accountancy (especially the vegetable nutrition paradox) that probably will never be solved ---
    http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudConclusion.htm#BadNews

     

    World Clock --- http://www.peterussell.com/Odds/WorldClock.php
    Facts about the earth in real time --- http://www.worldometers.info/

    Interesting Online Clock and Calendar --- http://home.tiscali.nl/annejan/swf/timeline.swf
    Time by Time Zones --- http://timeticker.com/
    Projected Population Growth (it's out of control) --- http://geography.about.com/od/obtainpopulationdata/a/worldpopulation.htm
             Also see http://users.rcn.com/jkimball.ma.ultranet/BiologyPages/P/Populations.html
            
    Facts about population growth (video) --- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMcfrLYDm2U
    Projected U.S. Population Growth --- http://www.carryingcapacity.org/projections75.html
    Real time meter of the U.S. cost of the war in Iraq --- http://www.costofwar.com/ 
    Enter you zip code to get Census Bureau comparisons --- http://zipskinny.com/
    Sure wish there'd be a little good news today.

    Free (updated) Basic Accounting Textbook --- search for Hoyle at
    http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ElectronicLiterature.htm#Textbooks

    CPA Examination --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cpa_examination
    Free CPA Examination Review Course Courtesy of Joe Hoyle --- http://cpareviewforfree.com/

    Rick Lillie's education, learning, and technology blog is at http://iaed.wordpress.com/

    Accounting News, Blogs, Listservs, and Social Networking ---
    http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/AccountingNews.htm

    Bob Jensen's Threads --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/threads.htm 
    Current and past editions of my newsletter called New Bookmarks --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookurl.htm
    Current and past editions of my newsletter called Tidbits --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/TidbitsDirectory.htm
    Current and past editions of my newsletter called Fraud Updates --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudUpdates.htm

    Online Books, Poems, References, and Other Literature
    In the past I've provided links to various types electronic literature available free on the Web. 
    I created a page that summarizes those various links --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ElectronicLiterature.htm

    Some of Bob Jensen's Tutorials

    Accounting program news items for colleges are posted at http://www.accountingweb.com/news/college_news.html
    Sometimes the news items provide links to teaching resources for accounting educators.
    Any college may post a news item.

    Accountancy Discussion ListServs:

    For an elaboration on the reasons you should join a ListServ (usually for free) go to   http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ListServRoles.htm
    AECM (Educators)  http://pacioli.loyola.edu/aecm/ 
    AECM is an email Listserv list which provides a forum for discussions of all hardware and software which can be useful in any way for accounting education at the college/university level. Hardware includes all platforms and peripherals. Software includes spreadsheets, practice sets, multimedia authoring and presentation packages, data base programs, tax packages, World Wide Web applications, etc

    Roles of a ListServ --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ListServRoles.htm
     

    CPAS-L (Practitioners) http://pacioli.loyola.edu/cpas-l/ 
    CPAS-L provides a forum for discussions of all aspects of the practice of accounting. It provides an unmoderated environment where issues, questions, comments, ideas, etc. related to accounting can be freely discussed. Members are welcome to take an active role by posting to CPAS-L or an inactive role by just monitoring the list. You qualify for a free subscription if you are either a CPA or a professional accountant in public accounting, private industry, government or education. Others will be denied access.
    Yahoo (Practitioners)  http://groups.yahoo.com/group/xyztalk
    This forum is for CPAs to discuss the activities of the AICPA. This can be anything  from the CPA2BIZ portal to the XYZ initiative or anything else that relates to the AICPA.
    AccountantsWorld  http://accountantsworld.com/forums/default.asp?scope=1 
    This site hosts various discussion groups on such topics as accounting software, consulting, financial planning, fixed assets, payroll, human resources, profit on the Internet, and taxation.
    Business Valuation Group BusValGroup-subscribe@topica.com 
    This discussion group is headed by Randy Schostag [RSchostag@BUSVALGROUP.COM

    Many useful accounting sites (scroll down) --- http://www.iasplus.com/links/links.htm

     

    Bob Jensen's Sort-of Blogs --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/JensenBlogs.htm
    Current and past editions of my newsletter called New Bookmarks --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookurl.htm
    Current and past editions of my newsletter called Tidbits --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/TidbitsDirectory.htm
    Current and past editions of my newsletter called Fraud Updates --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudUpdates.htm

    Some Accounting History Sites

    Bob Jensen's Accounting History in a Nutshell and Links --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/theory01.htm#AccountingHistory
     

    Accounting History Libraries at the University of Mississippi (Ole Miss) --- http://www.olemiss.edu/depts/accountancy/libraries.html
    The above libraries include international accounting history.
    The above libraries include film and video historical collections.

    MAAW Knowledge Portal for Management and Accounting --- http://maaw.info/

    Academy of Accounting Historians and the Accounting Historians Journal ---
    http://www.accounting.rutgers.edu/raw/aah/

    Sage Accounting History --- http://ach.sagepub.com/cgi/pdf_extract/11/3/269

    A nice timeline on the development of U.S. standards and the evolution of thinking about the income statement versus the balance sheet is provided at:
    "The Evolution of U.S. GAAP: The Political Forces Behind Professional Standards (1930-1973)," by Stephen A. Zeff, CPA Journal, January 2005 --- http://www.nysscpa.org/cpajournal/2005/105/infocus/p18.htm
    Part II covering years 1974-2003 published in February 2005 --- http://www.nysscpa.org/cpajournal/2005/205/index.htm 

    A nice timeline of accounting history --- http://www.docstoc.com/docs/2187711/A-HISTORY-OF-ACCOUNTING

    From Texas A&M University
    Accounting History Outline --- http://acct.tamu.edu/giroux/history.html

    Bob Jensen's timeline of derivative financial instruments and hedge accounting ---
    http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudRotten.htm#DerivativesFrauds

    History of Fraud in America --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/415wp/AmericanHistoryOfFraud.htm
    Also see http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Fraud.htm

    More of Bob Jensen's Pictures and Stories
    http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Pictures.htm

    All my online pictures --- http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/PictureHistory/

     

    Professor Robert E. Jensen (Bob) http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen
    190 Sunset Hill Road
    Sugar Hill, NH 03586
    Phone:  603-823-8482 
    Email:  rjensen@trinity.edu