Borland Educational News and Views

Wednesday, April 01, 2009

The Stanford Laptop Orchestra

The personal computer has transformed the world of music.

Just as iTunes transformed the commercial music industry, new hardware and software tools have fundamentally changed the way in which university music departments teach the art of musical composition and performance.

The Stanford Laptop Orchestra (SLOrK ) is a bold experiment by Stanford researcher/programmer Ge Wang that combines the flexibility of Apple MacBook laptops, multi-channel speaker arrays made out of Ikea salad bowls, creative computer programming, and visionary imagination into an intriguing mix that makes for some pretty interesting sounds.

Paul Craft writes in the Stanford Daily:

The set-up is relatively simple. Members of the SLOrk operate black Apple Macbooks, which are connected via a series of cables to a spherical speaker system and control box for volume, among other things. Depending on the piece being played, the set up can include a joystick and other accessories.

The laptops themselves are, as the group’s title suggests, the heart of Wang’s vision. Ensemble members — the “musicians” — use a variety of different programs and configurations to create a variety of different sounds, ranging from a human-like voice to percussion to the ambient noises of a casino. SLOrK relies on a coding language that Professor Wang developed while at Princeton known simply as “CHUcK.” The language is made specifically for music and sound use, prototyping an instrument in a matter of minutes. “The computer itself is not an instrument. We have to craft it into one,” Wang said.

Read the rest of Craft's article here.

An interesting posting in the Pro section of the Apple site further details SLOrk's innovative joining of laptop and audio technology.

For video articles on SLOrk, and to hear the orchestra live in concert, click here and here.

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Contact Chris

borlandeducational.com

Sunday, March 01, 2009

Save Thousands On Textbooks

Textbooks demand scandalously high prices these days. It's nothing for math and science texts to cost more than $150 apiece, and list price on some books has soared to more than $200! That means that today's college students can easily spend well over $1000 or more on textbooks alone in a single year.

Excerpts from a recent article in the Pittsburg Post-Gazzette:

Like college tuition, the price of textbooks has soared faster than inflation. From 1986 to 2004, textbook prices nearly tripled, according to a Government Accountability Office report in 2005.

Nationwide, the GAO figured that textbooks were about a fourth of the cost of tuition and fees at four-year public colleges and universities and as much as three-quarters of the cost of tuition and fees at two-year public institutions.

Fortunately, there's a simple way to avoid falling victim to the college textbook extortion racket: ditch the college bookstore ... and buy new, used, or previous editions online!

Over the course of a four year college education, this tip plus a little disciplined research could easily save students and parents thousands of dollars.

Start by putting together a reliable list of the exact titles and ISBN numbers of all textbooks you'll be required to obtain for your classes during the upcoming semester (give yourself more time to save money and avoid problems by doing this as far in advance as possible).

To begin shopping, first search for the books you need by title, author, and/or ISBN on Amazon. It's possible to save nearly 30% or more when buying new books through Amazon or other online book dealers instead of at college bookstores, and even more (over 70%!) by buying used books online (at amazon, just click on the "... used" link a few inches below the title on the book's product page).

In addition to amazon, a host of online textbook price comparison sites like DealOz, CheapestTextbooks, and BookFinder enable one to directly compare prices of new and used textbooks offered for sale online at drastically reduced prices.

The latest edition of a given text is, of course, going to be the most expensive. But if the course instructor will allow students to use a previous edition rather than the most current one (it doesn't hurt to ask!), you could save nearly 70% on a brand new book by buying it online.

When buying textbooks online, whether new or used, it's a good idea to buy only from highly rated merchants (DealOz and Amazon provide this important information when doing book searches; CheapestTextbooks and BookFinder do not); otherwise, if your books don't arrive in a timely fashion or in acceptable condition, you may have to procure them again in great haste and at full retail price through the college bookstore.

And don't forget the option of selling your textbooks after you no longer have a need for them! Amazon makes this easy, and doing so could recoup much of the money you've had to spend (even after highlighting and marking your books, you'll still be able to get something for them by passing them along to another buyer).

The movement to lower textbook prices is growing fast. Some university professors are fighting back, opting to use free and low-cost online resources rather than force students to get ripped off at the college store. Aside from saving a pile of wallet green, buying used books online is also environmentally greener than purchasing brand new books to be used only for a short time and then discarded.

Save a bundle ... buy texts online!

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Contact Chris

borlandeducational.com

Sunday, February 01, 2009

Tutoring Gets Outsourced

It had to happen.

With rates for in-home tutors in the U.S. averaging around $60 per hour, and video conferencing software that allows people across the globe to hold productive meetings on each other's computer screens, it was only a matter of time until enterprising companies found a way to outsource private tutoring of American students to India.

Now, for about $25 per hour (less than half price), a student in San Francisco can work with a tutor in India over the internet utilizing modern voice and conferencing software to communicate essential academic questions and concepts.

Apparently, the arrangement works quite well for many students, especially for those whose parents are unable to afford the higher cost of hiring a private tutor to work in person with their son or daughter.

Of course, nothing beats a face-to face one-on-one sit down with an expert private teacher. So much of communication is non-verbal, and many students will find internet tutoring to lack the fullness of instruction and personal quality that only live sessions with local tutors and coaches can provide. Students with learning differences or disabilities will almost certainly find that impersonal online sessions with tutors untrained and inexperienced in handling these difficult issues are inadequate to meet their specialized needs. Still others will want to be able to go into greater depth and detail than is possible through a remote, online connection with a teacher continents away.

But for simple questions, occasional sessions, or a low cost way to meet the needs of struggling students, online tutoring offers a viable alternative that may be worth considering for many families.

An excellent article recently appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle, and offers a starting point for those interested in finding out more (to go to the article, click here).

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Contact Chris

borlandeducational.com

Thursday, January 01, 2009

U.C. Berkeley For Free

Made possible by the miracle of the internet, a movement is now well underway among some of the greatest universities in the world to make their courses freely available to anyone with an internet connection – not for profit, but simply to disseminate knowledge for the betterment humankind. (See earlier post on the "OpenCourseWare Movement" titled: M.I.T. for Free.)

Today, those interested in learning informally and independently from some of the best colleges and professors on the planet can essentially audit many courses at institutions like M.I.T. and U.C. Berkeley online. Whether done in one's spare time for the pure pleasure of learning, or in a more structured way to gain greater expertise in a particular academic area, the potential for personal and professional growth is tremendous. Whether an advanced high schooler in Larkspur, California, a budding computer genius in Helsinki, Finland or a poor villager in Kuala Lampur, Malaysia, the collective knowledge of mankind is now beginning to be offered online without cost or registration, worldwide, for the benefit of all concerned.

Additionally, by taking these online peeks under the hood at the engines that power famous universities in the U.S. and abroad, one begins to get a feel for what it may be like to attend this or that college, to take a course with this or that professor, a valuable plus for anyone soon to make critical decisions about which university, major, or professors to select.

Below is a short sample of U.C. Berkeley courses that anyone can audit, for any reason, for free, online:

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Title: Introduction to Nonviolence
– PACS 164A: Lecture 14

Date: Fall 2006

Instructor: Michael N. Nagler (Professor Emeritus of Classics and Comparative Literature)

I spent an hour late this morning peeking into a terrific U.C. Berkeley class given by renowned professor Michael N. Nagler, as he delivered an enthralling lecture about the successful efforts of the 1930's Pashtuns, who, lead by Abdul Ghaffar Khan in what is now Pakistan, manned the "army without guns" that nonviolently fought and finally helped defeat the British colonizers and win their people's freedom.

I learned that Ghaffar Khan, an ardent Muslim and follower of comrade and contemporary Mohatma Ghandi, was a strong believer in the absolute compatibility of Islam with the tactics and philosophy of nonviolence, a belief that carries with it critical importance and special relevance today:

"I am going to give you such a weapon that the police and the army will not be able to stand against it. It is the weapon of the Prophet, but you are not aware of it. That weapon is patience and righteousness. No power on earth can stand against it."

– Abdul Ghaffar Khan

I find it hard to describe what a thrill it was to listen to Professor Nagler, a remarkable instructor and world-class expert in this particular field, teach on the power of nonviolence as a political and cultural force ... to be able to sit in on this fascinating class.

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Title: Physics for Future Presidents (Physics C10)
– Lecture 04: Gravity and Satellites II

Date: 2/2/2006

Instructor: Richard A. Muller (Professor of Physics)

From the course description:

"The most interesting and important topics in physics, stressing conceptual understanding rather than math, with applications to current events."

In this lecture, Prof Muller talks about escape velocity, and other topics germane to the space program, etc.

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Title: General Human Anatomy (Integrative Biology 131)
-- Lecture 30: The Eye

Instructor: Marian Diamond

Professor Diamond takes a look at "the cells that built the Golden Gate Bridge, that built the pyramids, that built the Palm Pilot ... the two main cells in your cerebral cortex that are responsible for all of your behavior."

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Click here to see the complete catalog of U.C. Berkeley courses available on YouTube.

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Contact Chris

borlandeducational.com

Monday, December 01, 2008

Top Universities Liberalize Financial Aid Policies

The outrageous cost of higher education in America just got knocked down a few notches.

In tow with Stanford University, both Yale and Harvard have recently announced plans to make tuition at their institutions much more affordable for Americans with low and middle incomes.

At Stanford, students whose parents make less than $60K per year will soon pay no tuition and nothing for room and board, while those those whose families earn up to $100K per year still still pay zip for tuition.

Under the new plans, the average student attending Yale will pay half what he or she paid before. Students at Harvard with less than $60K in annual parental income will now pay zero to attend (though work study will be required), and parents with incomes up to $180K will pay only 10% of their combined incomes for each child in attendance.

Other major universities nation-wide are following suit, increasing aid to middle and low income families and substituting grants for student loans so students can graduate without having to shoulder a crushing debt burden.

On Planet Earth in 2008, access to higher education divides countries that "have" from those that "have not." While other developed nations offer a free college education to any citizen who can cut the mustard academically, here in the U.S. the unmanageably high cost of college has been shutting off economic and cultural advancement to large segments of our population for some time, now.

It's about time this untenable situation was addressed and remedied. Let's hope the recent trend toward making higher education affordable for all qualified students in America continues and accelerates. Fixing this problem is clearly a matter of national economic competitiveness, and therefore, ultimately, a matter of national security.

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Contact Chris

borlandeducational.com