Since APUS courses are offered wholly online with no time for face-to-face instruction, we developed a number of math instructional videos using Camtasia tablet software and embedded them in our classrooms to supplement the instructional materials.  Later, we decided to make our math videos available to everyone on our American Public University iTunesU site  and our APUS Youtube channel.  Comments to the individual videos, primarily in the form of thank you’s, demonstrate the usefulness and the need for technology like this.  More recently, we partnered with McDonogh School to establish a website, www.campusmath.com, to offer primarily math videos to the public for an elementary school through high school curriculum.  While I can’t speak on behalf of McDonogh School, I think that both of our institutions are aligned with the belief that math skills need to be improved and providing access to these videos to teachers, students, and parents may contribute to improved skills without providing the teachers and professors inside of a physical or electronic classroom.

The article about the Khan Academy in Wired mentions a teacher at Santa Rita Elementary in California who uses the videos from the Khan Academy to replace some of her lectures and then spends more time in class working on problem sets.  Teachers using the Khan Academy videos and problem sets have access to a dashboard that lets them see exactly where the student is stuck on a particular concept or problem.  Increasing the amount of time spent in class solving problem sets provides the teacher with more one-on-one time with the students who need assistance.  Contributing Editor Clive Thompson mentions the 1984 Benjamin Bloom metastudy that measured the effectiveness of one-on-one tutoring versus general classroom instruction (two standard deviations more effective for one-on-one instruction).  Obviously, schools cannot afford to teach everyone one-on-one but technology is capable of assisting teachers and students to improve learning outcomes.  What prompted Khan to record his videos was the discovery that viewing videos over and over again in private is less embarrassing for the student than admitting in a one-on-one session that they still don’t understand the material.  Judging from the comments posted by students on our Youtube videos, Khan’s discovery is on track.

Based on the increasing frequency of its use in the classroom, technology continues to advance at a pace faster than the implementation capabilities of many of America’s K-12 schools, colleges, and universities.  At the same time, there are a number of educational innovators who are willing to experiment.  As Clayton Christensen points out in Disrupting Class: How Disruptive Innovation Will Change the Way the World Learns, technology will ultimately provide educators with the ability to teach students with multiple learning modalities the intended lessons without impeding the highly talented individuals from learning more.  It is my hope that few institutions and regulators impede the innovation process.  (To read my review of Christensen’s Disrupting Class, see my August 2008 blog article.)

Focusing on the contentious relationship between Google and Facebook, the article seems to portray an online rivalry of sorts between social networking and the algorithmic based internet search engines.  In the fall of 2007, Google executives were excited by the prospect of obtaining if not all at least a stake in Facebook.  According to Fred Vogelstein, author of the Wired article, Google’s leadership realized that Facebook has managed to change the online behaviors of its members.  The volume and nature of personal information exchanged on Facebook is a marketing gold mine for other internet companies, including Google.  While sharing personal information on the internet has become not only taboo but an outright “no no,” Facebook users not only use their real and often full names but also their real email addresses to connect with their real friends and “share their real thoughts, tastes, and news.”  Whereas internet giants like Google have struggled to tap into such personal information, Facebook enjoys a unique privilege in which its users willingly provide substantial volumes of such information.

While Google executives toured their European offices, however, in the fall of 2007 basking in the possibility of getting their hands on a piece of the Facebook action, they received word that not only would they not be making any investment in the social networking site, their archrival, Microsoft, would instead be enjoying that privilege.  According to Vogelstein’s article, Microsoft’s investment in Facebook was “$240 million for a 1.6 percent stake in the company, meaning that Redmond valued Facebook at an astonishing $15 billion.”  In what many in the industry consider a sneaky but astute move by Facebook CEO Mark Zukerberg, Microsoft was always the preferred partner; Facebook insiders, according to the article, reveal that Google’s bid was merely a strategic move to up the ante with Microsoft. 

It doesn’t take much consideration of this situation to realize why Google executives were disappointed by the outcome of what they thought would be a golden opportunity.  Facebook has become one of the most popular websites on the internet with “about one-fifth of all internet users” having Facebook accounts.  As already mentioned, the volume of personal information exchanged publicly on Facebook would have given internet companies like Google an opportunity to peer into the personal tastes and preferences of a large portion of internet users.  Facebookers, according to the article, believe that internet search engines like Google are not humanistic enough, providing results based on mathematical algorithms that have no insight into the personal choices and preferences of internet users.

Realizing the treasure trove of information to which they have access, Facebook is intensely protective of that asset.  “Details about…200 million Facebook users exists on the social network’s roughly 40,000 servers,” creating what some consider “almost a second internet.”  For a company whose publicly stated mission is to “organize the world’s information,” the inability to access such information “represents a massive and fast-growing blind spot for Google.”  The somewhat contentious relationship between Google and Facebook has evolved into a full blown rivalry.

Interestingly, however, as Vogelstein explains, Facebook is not necessarily in a position to do much with the personal information to which it has access.  Recently, Zukerberg and his top leadership have attempted to generate revenue by using the personal information of Facebook members to employ targeted marketing campaigns only to abandon many such campaigns after members raucously complained.  For example, as Vogelstein points out, Facebook’s November 2007 launch of Beacon, “a ham-fisted attempt to inject advertising into News Feeds” on the site left many members feeling “violated.”  After only a handful of weeks, Facebook was forced to dump the campaign to keep their constituents happy.  Earlier this year, after attempting to change its terms of use and service to give Facebook the rights to any information (photos, videos, etc.) posted on the site, users complained again to the point that “the company was forced to backtrack.” 

The race to gain access to the personal information contained on Facebook in order to capitalize on it has led many to wonder if social networking sites are the wave of the internet future.  Vogelstein points out that while one can search for a movie review on Google and find out what Google suggests, it is often more meaningful for individuals to have access to the same review posted by friends and family members via Facebook.  In essence, Facebook has managed to utilize the medium of the internet to create a significantly more “touchy-feely” experience for users.  While the ability to type a keyword into a search engine like Google in order to receive results was once the most novel idea on the internet, social networking sites like Facebook have taken this concept to a higher level. 

Not only has the advent of social networking sites like Facebook allowed us to keep up with the lives of our friends and families who are often spread around the country and world, it has brought a more personal face to the internet in general.  While Google has been my search engine of choice for years, it is frustrating to receive pages and pages of items in a search when perhaps the best way to find what you are looking for is to ask a friend.  With hundreds of millions of friends networking off the searchable internet, Facebook has a tremendous asset if they don’t stumble.

When I returned home, I picked up the June 2008 issue of Wired magazine and noted that the cover article is about global warming and cutting carbon. The article titled “Inconvenient Truths” states that the war on greenhouse gases is too important to be left to the environmentalists. There are a few key points highlighted:

1. live in cities
2. A/C is ok
3. organics are not the answer
4. farm the forests
5. China is the solution
6. accept genetic engineering
7. carbon trading doesn’t work
8. embrace nuclear power
9. used cars not hybrids
10. prepare for the worst.

While I don’t have the background as a scientist as President Oxtoby does, many of these comments are based on scientific evidence and contrast with some of the environmentalists’ efforts. I recommend interested readers pick up a copy of the issue.