🚀 go-pugleaf

A repost from alt.uu.future:

From: aland@chaos.cs.brandeis.edu (Alan D.)
Subject: Re: Usenet University things to ponder
Message-ID: <aland.711118132@chaos.cs.brandeis.edu>
References: <1992Jul13.210406.16163@m.cs.uiuc.edu>
Date: Tue, 14 Jul 1992 12:48:52 GMT

mcgrath@cs.uiuc.edu (Robert McGrath) writes:

>Here are some things I find not at all obvious about UU.  These may
>be F Asked Qs but they need answers.

I dunno...  I just 'got here,' as it were, but I had some ideas for
answers.

>1.  Where is the pub?  The most interesting, enjoyable, and possibly
>important aspect of face-to-face class work is the social interaction
>which frequently continues outside of the class setting.  Is this
>possible in the UU setting, and if so, how will it work?  It's going
>to be pretty gosh-darned difficult to have the class over for dinner
>at the end of the term, that's for sure!

alt.callahans. ;)

>2.  Does a 'class' try to 'stay together', or do people proceed at 
>their own pace?  How do you keep together with round trips of up 
>to 72 hours to some members of the class?

This really isn't that different from a 'normal' class, one in which
students of differing abilities work at different rates...

>3.  How do I draw you a picture?  Practically everything interesting
>to study and teach requires visualization, images, and diagrams.
>Exchange of such info through internet is difficult or impossible.
>Same problem for hi fidelity sound.  Even bigger problem for anything
>that requires shared experience such as examining a piece of sculpture
>or an engine.

Postscript. ;)  It's the closest to a universal graphics language that
we have right now.  'MacPaint' binary pictures are viewable from both
Macintosh and Unix under X, but I don't know about PCs.

>4.  Will teachers need to be able to screen potential students for
>adequate foundation, and if so how?  I can't exactly say that 
>"Students should have experience equivalent to 1 semester of calculus, 
>two courses in metaphysics, and an upper level course in botany", as these 
>experiences are difficult to translate.

This could be a problem, but as there seem to be no real per-student
expenses (once the course is designed, adding another student is of
negligible cost.  Since adding someone is 'cheap,' it probably doesn't
matter if 'unqualified' people virtually sit in, auditing the course
so to speak.  And, if someone consistently 'hands in' work which is
obviously unqualified, then the grader can notify the student.

>5.  Why would I enroll as a student in UU?  
>6.  Why would I want to teach in UU?  
>To the degree that there are many different answers to these questions,
>there are many different problems.  Do I, as a student, expect to be
>entertained, or do I expect to develope an important new skill, or
>what?  Do I as a teacher expect to entertain, to convince, or to
>expand the frontiers of knowledge?  This leads to the next question:

I would enroll as a student in UU because there was a course being
offered in a subject in which I am interested.  I would teach in UU
because if is was a subject I am interested in which does not mesh
well with the course offerings at my place of employment, be it
academic or commercial.

>7.  What sort of "contract" will typically exist between teachers
>and amoung students, and how do we learn about them.  E.g., perhaps
>a teacher is supposed to perform certain roles, and continue until 
>some goal or time.  Perhaps students are supposed to participate 
>in certain ways, interact with fellows in certain ways, and so on.  
>If these "contracts" are to be worked out for each class individually, 
>the UU will be an interesting experiment in applied sociology, but 
>much else will be crowded out by negotiations we take for granted 
>in more "traditional" settings.   Notice the effort that is going
>into simply defining the overall idea.  Multiply this by the
>number of courses times the number of participants, and there
>isn't much time left for anything else.

Perhaps, in the 'registration packet' there would be some explanation
of what is desired and required from the students in a course.

Anyway, I would like to know where to go to get further information
about this group. ;)

Thanks,
	-=Alan

				I am:
	     aland@chaos.cs.brandeis.edu <Alan Danziger>
			 Brandeis University
	       Computer Science Department / Ford Hall
			Waltham, MA 02254-9110
			     617-736-7232