SPSS install

I was installing SPSS on a virtual lab machine and came across two problems. After the install, the Windows Installer coordinator would hang. After applying the solution found here and on Microsoft Support, the install went off much better. Unfortunately, licensing would fail. “Changing the LSHOST System Environment Variable value from “no-net” to the IP …

“The Shutdown”, Research, Spatial labs, and GIS at CC.

      Sixteen days doesn’t sound all that long, but here at CC, September 30th was the start of Block Two as well as the start of the 2013 Government shutdown.  How exactly does this impact education at a small liberal arts college… In my world of GIS, spatial inquiry and analysis, information is king. …

Eyeo Festival

Eyeo is a three day conference that takes place in Minneapolis, MN. It is a gathering where many come to explore and learn about art, technology, information and the interaction of all three. The festival’s tagline is “Converge to Inspire,” and inspire it does. Since its iteration (2011) there has been a clear spike in …

Call it a support group for GIS enthusiasts

Please check out a great web resources for GIS educators: http://www.teachgis.org/ “Teachers and learners of GIS, and related geo-technologies, want to increase the rewards while we lower the frustrations.  This site, created by instructors and for instructors, is designed to support our educational community of practice.” Resources, Discussions, and Blogs.  This site is truly made by educators for educators who have …

Linear algebra,classroom response systems, and questions about questions

I recently dived into studying linear algebra, and was intrigued to read Robert Talbert’s post about the use of peer instruction in linear algebra classes. Talbert says that “Linear algebra is loaded with big ideas that all connect around a central question (whether or not a matrix is invertible). The computation is not the hard …

Do screencasts actually help students learn?

In reading Robert Talbert’s blog post about a study that appears in the Journal of Engineering Education, I realized that answering this question really requires us to talk first about what problems the screencasts are meant to address. In the study he discusses, there were two types of screencasts: homework solution screencasts, where the professor …

How can technology help address common teaching challenges?

A few ideas bubbled up at the block 5 block break workshop we did on that topic. We started off with a presentation from Thomas Riedel of Regis University in Denver, who told us about a project undertaken there to help students better understand academic integrity issues. We then split up into groups to talk …

Noam Chomsky – The Purpose of Education

What is the difference between education and indoctrination? This debate rages back hundreds, thousands, of years, and will rage thousands more into the future. Every major philosopher has had one answer or another, from Plato to Locke, Hegel and Rousseau to Dewey. Continuing in that venerable tradition, linguist, political activist, and academic generalist extraordinaire Noam …

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