The Professor's Notes

A couple more “tidbits” on US Airways.

As if you needed any more reasons to not fly US Airways, this report comes from my wife on her trip back home.

We left on different flights heading back East. She took off on time from San Francisco, but unfortunately, her flight apparently had slower engines than mine, and she arrived 30 minutes later than scheduled. This is, of course, a problem when you only have 40 minutes scheduled between flights, and your flights are in two different terminals. She talked to the flight attendant on board her first flight, and advised them of the situation. The response was actually classic US Airways: 1. You aren’t alone, there are many others who are in the same situation. 2. I am sure they know you are coming, so don’t worry about it.

Why do I call this a classic US Airways response? First, they inevitably tell you that you aren’t alone with this problem. I am not sure why they do that, but I think it is to make you feel small–like somehow you have no “real” gripe because you aren’t really unique, or special. My response has been typically “Well, if so many people are having these problems, perhaps you should be doing something to fix your airline–don’t you agree?” The second ‘typical’ response is to tell you that it will all be taken care of later, by someone else. The classic buck-passer. That’s the story I heard, time and again, from everyone I met who entered the realm of “customer service” with USAirways. Inevitably, and I do mean inevitably, the buck passer mis-spoke, mislead or just didn’t want to do something.

So that brings me back to my wife’s story. She gets off the plane, and starts hurrying Read the rest of this entry »

I have now officially “had it” with US Airways.

I had a trip out west, and unfortunately, flew on US Airways. The night before I left, I received a call telling my that my flight out would be delayed by about 2 hours, which would mean I would miss my connecting flight. I had to press hard for them to work through that, but luckily I had already built in a buffer to that schedule. My meeting was the next day at 7 am, so I would be “fine.” I had planned on meeting my wife in San Francisco and thus we had more “complications.” I needed to get her flight re-routed as well, so that she wouldn’t be waiting for 5 or 6 hours in the airport. At first, US Airways was not willing to work with us on this. “Her flight isn’t the one delayed” they kept reminding me. Finally, after a full hour on the phone, I was able to not only work out changes that had us arrive at the same time, but it put us on the same connecting flight!

All’s well that ends well? Not quite. Not by a long shot. When we got on the plane to connect to San Fran, it turned out my wife’s seat was literally double booked.¹ She, and another gentleman, had the same seat assignment.²  On an overbooked flight. Ah, but they were able to accommodate us again. We got to sit next to the bathroom.

Now here is where I feel bad. I could a nice long blog entry about how the meting went quite well. (It did.) How absolutely enjoyable (and fabulous) the “vacation” portion of it was. (It was!) I should write about how I enjoyed the seafood, and how I thought it was neat to see and hear the sealions in Monterey. (all true.) But nope. I am still too angry.

You see, I am still at the airport waiting for the final leg of my flight home. When I arrived (yesterday morning) at the airport in San Francisco, I was told that my final flight, the 50 minute connector to my hometown, was canceled (already.) And why was it canceled? Because they wouldn’t 12 hours later, have an aircrew to fly the plane. Yup–they had a “crew cancel” scheduled more than 12 hours before the flight would even take off!

The gentleman at the counter worked hard to find an alternative, but when US Airways is the only airline to the local airport, the options are limited. Ultimately, I ended up heading to the connecting airport on the East Coast, and having to stay at a (very crappy) hotel at US Airways expense. They did provide me with meal vouchers. And you know just how far that $5 goes at an airport!

I did tell them that, since they screwed up my outbound and my inbound flights that they owed me some additional compensation. Alas, so far I have only received the buck passing. More to follow, no doubt.

_{1 This is interesting, given that on April 24^th the airline’s President, and the Chairman/CEO issued a letter to customers touting that the new reservations system is in place, and that the “new software and better airport processes will allow our airport employees to focus less on keystrokes and more on getting you where you need to be, on time, with your bag. ”
² To delve further into this story, on that same flight there was another seat with two bookings. On top of that, on my final flight home (yes, I finally got one!) “they” double booked a seat on that flight. In today’s era of “Web 2.0″ and Digital Natives, how does this happen? Perhaps another post, on that…}

“Spinal Tap reunites to fight Climate Change”

In MY mind it’s not too bizarre that a “fictional band” is “reuniting” to fight a fictional problem.

All kidding aside, I am not a “disbeliever” in climate change. I do remain unconvinced that mankind is responsible for it. More to follow later, when I put together a podcast highlight how the “fake” 90% probability figure was created for the IPCC report.

I am not sure if this approach actually lends credibility to the argument that climate change is a man-made. When you read the story, the band continues to spoof on any number of subjects. Quoting:

In the new film, Reiner, reprising his role, takes credit for coining the term “global warming.” The band members discuss their long history of charity work, such as campaigns to help ferrets — by raising money to feed them Caesar salad — and to help people with high insteps.

As I see this, they are comparing Climate Change to ferrets, Caesar salad and high insteps. Hmmm. Perhaps Reiner is also not “a believer.”

A term heard more and more (at least in the Web 2.o and techno-circuits) is “digital Native.” It’s used to describe the current generation of those “under 25″ who have never known a life without the internet, a life without connectivity. Lee Rainie, (Director of the Pew Internet and American Life Project) spoke at the Penn State Teaching and Learning with Technology (TLT) Symposium, about this generation, and the view (not limited to him) that this somehow makes this generation unique. Cole Camplese summarized Lee’s remarks on his blog So I won’t go over that.

I am intrigued by this phrase, the “digital Native.” It implies somehow that these youth are themselves involved with the “digital” nature of things. Honestly, I don’t think people realize what it means anymore to be “digital.” For instance, one blog author recently wrote:

“I killed the CD collection years ago and have been living in a digital music ecosystem since my iPods’ storage capacities started to match my old analog collection.”

Does anyone else see that there is no distinction between “CD Collection” and being “digital?” I, for one, made the switch to digital coding and storage of my music when I made the switch to CDs. They are digital. I still listen to my music in analog however. Whether on an iPod, CD, or “digital XM radio.” In fact, we have seen in the past 40 years a move from talking to computers in a “digital” fashion through programming in “machine code” to first creating computer “languages” that move more to human language and thought (Fortran, C++, etc), and now to developing interfaces for computers such as WordPress, iTunes, and others than make the computer more “human friendly” rather than making us more “digital.”

And here lies my point: This generation isn’t any more “digital” than any other. Humanity is inherently “analog.” We see things in analog, we hear in analog, and despite efforts to compare our brains to computers, we apparently think in analog. This “digital generation” is still engaged in all the things that youth of every generation have found to occupy their time.

One of the thoughts defining how the world has changed is that youth today are able to interact in “social computing spaces” such as MySpace and FaceBook. Is that really different from past generations? Some seem to think that, because teens are now relating from a keyboard, that this is somehow “different” and imbues these youth with something perhaps even “magical” that we have to learn to tap.

I would argue that teens, being human, are social animals. Today they use Web 2.0 tools. In the 90′s it was AOL Chat rooms (digital, I realize). Before that teens hung out at the mall (70′s and 80′s), Soda Shops (50′s) and Ice Cream Parlours (20′s and 30′s). Prior to that, despite long distances that separated the youth in our agrarian societies, they found time for “barn dances” and other social events. People of all ages and through all ages have wanted to be “together” and socialize with other people. That hasn’t changed.

“But wait” you may say, “now the youth are sharing and communicating in a very global way with people they have never met.” Yes, that is true. Of course, back in the days of what I call “web 0.0″ people did the same with pen-pals and the use of postal services. People even solicited inputs from strangers by putting messages in bottles, attaching cards to balloon launches, and perhaps dozens of other creative ways of reaching out in very tactile ways to a world one didn’t even know.

But are our youth any more “global” than they were before? While Lee Rainie and Bryan Alexander talked about the global nature of this new communication, Lee did point out that most of the communication today is between small groups.  In response to a question I posed from the floor he pointed out that most “content creators” create for a small group, and believe that their work will only be viewed by a select few.  Some even control that group by limiting access to their “friends.”

So here is my bottom line :

Kids today aren’t any different than we were, or our parents were.  Technology is more pervasive simply because smart people have made digital into a more “analog” experience.  Perhaps we need to stop emoting over the technology, and focus again on people rather than process.

I have spent the day at the PSU Teaching and Learning with Technology Symposium. Among other things, I am sitting here in the presentation for using the Tablet PCs in education. The panel is comprised (completely) of engineers. It is interesting how the Engineering Community has latched on to this technology as an extension/transition from the blackboard to the tablet.

One major input: The students like the professor “facing” the students. Additional: They like the use of colors to highlight information.

What strikes me here, along with much of the conference, is how we are discussing ways of moving what we do, and making ourselves “more productive” with new technologies but not necessarily doing “new things.”

The faculty have made good use of the existing software to deliver their content. For instance, they don’t have any fancy “education software” to present the information, but rather have used Windows Journal to combine (pre) written text with charts diagrams, and “spontaneous” hand written notes to step through the lectures.

Back in “the day” I had professors that would essentially do the same thing. They would write out their notes, then scan them as PDFs , and either email or post them to a website.

The Mech Engineer professor has found that class attendance has dropped significantly. He suspects that it is because he posts the completed documents to the course website after the lectures. To me that is a “significant” finding since I haven’t seen a drop in attendance in my classes even though I post the PowerPoint slides, and record and post my lectures as podcasts.

The final professor with a presentation actually says he “records” his presentations, so that he can make it available for downloads. He uses a software package called “Centra” and records everything as he works through the lecture with the students in the classroom.

Interestingly, he has put forward that he would like to see all the students have tablets as well, so they can all begin to work in the classroom collaboratively.

I do have a few comments about Web 2.0 and the Symposium, but I will post those “later.”

Bolting the Tablet to the Podium??  Believe it or not, there actually are people in favor of this sort of thing.  It is the classic conflict between the institution’s desire to protect assets and the faculty desire to have mobility in the classroom.

I have recently read a few posts at one of my favorite digital haunts, “The Community College Dean,” and in his discussions about interviewing for a new position at another school, he consistently referred to the school as being in “Red State.” I was struck by this, since in that same blog (with the blog entries he has made, and the discussions that follow in the comments) several months ago the “Dean Dad” and others argued that academia isn’t “liberal.” But in the most recent posts on his blog, with his use of “red state” almost implying he had to hold his nose while traveling there, It sure sounds to me like there is a nearly unanimous distaste for the “red states” amongst this blog group. That leads me to wonder if the little group that comments here (and argues that academia isn’t biased in favor of liberalism) is a fair representation of the views of academia.

More importantly for the point of this discussion, I also generally dislike the relatively recent (read, in the past 7 years) trend to referring to states by color, as if that color somehow “means” something. It’s an interesting use of “code words” by a group (liberals) that generally have eschewed such things.

What is it about calling blue states “liberal states” and red states “conservative states” that is so distasteful? Which represents more accurately the views of the state? “Blue” or “Liberal/Progressive”?

Okay, so I couldn’t wait for the Helio to come out for Cingular. I went and bought a Cingular 8525. As you can see it is Pocket PC Based, has all the features to include embedded Word, Excel, and Powerpoint, and integrates with an email program. It’s default is Outlook, but since I use Thunderbird for email, with Lightning added in for calendar and task management, I needed to find another solution. That solution is “Birdie Sync” which syncs the contacts, and emails tasks, and calendar.

I already own a Pocket PC device, so I was familiar with the interface, and that was a significant draw for me. A few of you may recall I had mentioned previously my interest in a BlackJack. My oldest daughter now has one, and loves it, but she pointed out that one could view, but not edit documents (Word of Excel) with the device. That and the WiFi in this phone were enough to push me over the edge. Also, I didn’t want a phone with the keyboard exposed.
Personally, I like the slide-out feature with keyboard, and find it quite nice for typing.

Favorite feature? It has 802.11 WiFi built in, so one need not use the (expensive) data plan with Cingular, if one can find access through WiFi. Panera anyone?

Oh, it’s also “Touch Screen” and has a 2 mp camera.

Drawbacks? (Yes, I stick them way down here.) If anything, my one “negative” is the size. It’s no larger than a pack of playing cards, but it is thicker than I would perhaps otherwise have wanted. Also, the price is a bit high considering my rant about the iPhone. While I did pay considerably less than the list price of about $550 with the use of discounts and 2 year contract) it took some serious swallowing in advance.

Overall, it’s a nice device.