One of those things

by rizobreaker

California’s Loyalty Oath
[Via Big Think]

I just had to sign a loyalty oath as a condition of my employment at a California state university. The California constitution requires all state employees to sign the oath. And I frankly find it offensive.

It’s not that I have any reservations about bearing “true faith and allegiance to the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the United States of America” or supporting and defending them “against all enemies, foreign and domestic”—although as a lecturer in a freshman class I won’t exactly be called upon to defend the state against its enemies or execute its laws. But I love my country and its Constitution as much as anyone. It’s rather that I object to being required to prove my loyalty to state simply to teach a class. I feel the same way about the Pledge of Allegiance—do children really need to swear not betray their country every morning before school starts? Is treason really a big problem among elementary school children?

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One of the things to remind you that California is not just a place of wild-eyed hippies but also has a strong legacy of red-baiting that still lingers today. You can get fired for not signing the loyalty oath in California, although I do remember reading about someone who was big enough to get away with it. The average professor does not have that option.

Study groups in the cloud using an iPad – the way of the future for textbooks?

by thms.nl

Former Apple employee’s Inkling adapts bestselling college textbooks for Apple’s revolutionary iPad
[Via MacDailyNews]

“Maybe the iPad will move digital college textbooks out of theory and into practice,” Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg reports for The Wall Street Journal. “Although electronic book sales have exploded, digital college textbooks have been slow to get off the ground, in part because of high prices and hardware concerns. Now, a former Apple Inc. employee, Matt Mac Innis, is trying to shake up the market with a new approach that taps into the iPad’s strengths.”

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Textbooks are going to change rapidly and if the major publishers do not get on top of the wave quickly, it will crash over them. Putting multimedia content on an iPad is so obvious that someone will figure out how to do it right.

Perhaps Inkling has. Because if you watch the video at their site you find out something the WSJ article missed that will make Inkling a big deal.

About halfway through, they show a student bringing up a note on a page and asking a question. Then all their friends also using the textbook see a little thumbnail of him on the same page he put his question. They can then tap and see what his question is and answer it.

Study groups in the cloud!! No longer to you have to be in the same room at the same time with others in the class for a recitation session or to ask others questions about areas you do not understand. Now, asking questions can just happen and relevant people from your social network can help you answer it.

Turning your notebook into a social tool is a great idea and could change how learning is done at a University. If this plays out, schools will be giving iPads to their students already preloaded with important stuff linking them to incipient social networks for any entering Freshman – bookstore, library, etc. Textbooks can be purchased and downloaded to the iPad without having to stand in ine at the boostore.

I hope so – upgrade for iPhone 3G performance coming

Steve Jobs email: iOS 4 update to address performance issues on iPhone 3G ‘coming soon’
[Via MacDailyNews]

“A new email from Apple CEO Steve Jobs appears to confirm that the company will soon be issuing a software update to address issues with the iPhone 3G’s performance under iOS 4. Late last month, the company acknowledged that it was “looking into” user reports of the issue,” Eric Slivka reports for MacRumors.

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I have not upgraded my iPhone 3G because of the performance issues. If this takes care of some of them, I’m on board.

Traveling

I spent most of today helping my son move into the house he is sharing with 5 friends at college. Long drive across the state. And he has a ton of things he needs to get but that is the fun of having your own place, even if you share it with 5 others.

So, I’ll spend a little time catching up and write some in a little bit.