Can fancy graphics and animations improve the already questionable value of recorded lectures and the rest of the movement towards fully fledged online education?
I hate getting asked that question. Friday night it was the BBC asking about how Coursera and other fully online courses compare to classroom-based courses. Fuck that shit. You can’t compare the two because of the myriad variables unique to the circumstances. That might sound like a cop out, but think about it. The course itself matters a great deal– math online versus poetry online is very different. The instructor matters, of course. A superstar lecturer who can captivate audiences with carefully chosen words– carefully chosen in the moment– will have a very different educational impact on learners than what could be produced with a recorded lecture or a series of quizes or exercises. The implementation of the approach matters a great deal too. Some online courses that are designed carefully and facilitated well can be steller successes, and others can be abysmal failures. The point is that it isn’t about the format, it’s about the execution. Could I deliver a fully online course that changed minds and lives for the better? You bet your ass. Can everyone? Nope. And there are many who can lecture their asses off and accomplish their teaching and learning goals, but who could never do the same through the web. It all matters.
Random pic of me and a date. Oddly, this was from the first wedding in Flushing a couple months ago, but there was an exact repeat, same venue, same clothes, same everything, just different couple getting married, last weekend.
Things are going good for someone like me… someone who forces huge distance between himself and all women under any circumstances from now on. She’s been very understanding and for some reason still wants to date me, despite my fuckednesses. It’s been a few months. Her patience is probably wearing thin, but I can’t help it. Spending time with her is great, but when she’s out and about it’s nice to not have any expectations besides honesty. If I have to train and write and be alone and end up telling her to just stay away for a while, she’s cool with it. So far.
It’s nice to feel understood by someone sometimes.
My left eye is swollen and blackened from sparring full contact at the club over the weekend. Had a great time and did well. The other guy was just a kid, maybe 26, well conditioned and motivated, but he needs a wake up call on taking power shots from shins and fists. Both his eyes are swollen shut today, I’ve been told, and I’m pretty sure I fucked his elbow all the hell up pretty good, which wasn’t intentional, he just didn’t tap smartly.
They want me to compete this spring at big event, but as usual I’m over committed already. I offered to help prepare whomever else they’re trying to position in the string, and they accepted so I’ll be helping train some new blood this spring. That’ll be fun.
One year anniversary of the death of Hitch was Saturday. If he’d lasted one more day it would have been perfect– my birthday. Here’s a video of four of the world’s great thinkers and writers who had a personal relationship with Hitch talking about him after he died. Please check it out if you have time– these are sweet guys who really deserve to be heard, and their description of Hitch is everything I imagined he was.
RIP Hitch. In the year since you left us, I’ve read just about everything you ever wrote again, and I intend for that to be a regular habit for years.
