Bob was right, when he sang "Some are mathematicians,
Some are carpenter's wives." (at least concerning the singleton set containing me since yesterday 11 am). If you've got no idea, what I'm talking about, you might wonder, whether I'm tangled up in blue.
Thursday, 22 May 2008
What were they thinking?
economiesuisse proposes: "Die Koordination zwischen den Hochschulen muss auf ein notwendiges
Minimum beschränkt werden." (Translation: The coordination between universities has to be restricted to a necessary mininmum), the full text can be found here.
I don't know what they mean by this and why someone should propose this in the time of Bologna. Were they thinking of some kind of Apple business model for universities? As I've already mentioned, I don't know...
Minimum beschränkt werden." (Translation: The coordination between universities has to be restricted to a necessary mininmum), the full text can be found here.
I don't know what they mean by this and why someone should propose this in the time of Bologna. Were they thinking of some kind of Apple business model for universities? As I've already mentioned, I don't know...
I won't say, I knew it, but...
According to an article in Science:
"Undergraduate students may benefit more from learning mathematics through a single abstract, symbolic representation than from learning multiple concrete examples."
"Undergraduate students may benefit more from learning mathematics through a single abstract, symbolic representation than from learning multiple concrete examples."
Thursday, 15 May 2008
How much does a college droupout cost?
According to a survey of the "Stifterverband für die Deutsche Wissenschaft" Germany loses about 2.2 billion euros a year because of college dropouts. They also claim that if you include private investments and evaded incomes, the loss is as high as 7.6 billions.
How did they calculate this figures? For a scientific society there's quite a lack of sources (in words: zero). They give us a hint that they "correlated" the following datas: rate of college dropouts, average costs of a college place per year and average study time of college dropouts. I don't know how exactly they "correlated" those numbers, but I suspect, that they used a fairly (say: way too) simple calculation model. Using their reasoning it would also be quite a sound claim to say that it's best to shut down all the universities as soon as possible because students are a huge economical loss.
Let's think about it: If the average cost of a certain study place are about 10,000 euro a year and, say, we have ten dropouts. Does somebody (the state or the university) get 100,000 euro paid onto his bank account? I don't think so, because in a lot of courses, it doesn't actually matter whether you're teaching 100 or 150 students because most of the costs are fixed (the only thing that varies are the average costs of the college place depending on the number of students). On the other hand, is it really fair to consider the money spent on a college dropout lost? There are a lot of succesful college dropouts (and if you're using the reasoning from the "Stifterverband" they're actually earlier generating money in the economy than they're still studying counterparts at the university).
But we haven't faced the most important (and what actually should have been the first) question yet: What is a college dropout? Someone who quits college completely or someone who just switches his college courses? (Or some variation of this...). Think of someone who begins studying computer science as major and math as minor and finds out that she's just more a math type and therefore swaps her major and minor. Would you call her a dropout (she might turn up in some statistic as such)? Did she do any economical damage to the state (perhaps there were some slight administrative costs)?
What I want to say is, that some people have (in my opinion) far too simple views on this topic. I myself have actually no idea how you can calculate the cost of a college dropout and I even don't know how to find a good definition of a college dropout, but I think we should sort out this kind of questions first, before we are going to throw are trusty old Humboldtian university ideas over board and begin to restrict access to the universities and lose the academic liberties.
How did they calculate this figures? For a scientific society there's quite a lack of sources (in words: zero). They give us a hint that they "correlated" the following datas: rate of college dropouts, average costs of a college place per year and average study time of college dropouts. I don't know how exactly they "correlated" those numbers, but I suspect, that they used a fairly (say: way too) simple calculation model. Using their reasoning it would also be quite a sound claim to say that it's best to shut down all the universities as soon as possible because students are a huge economical loss.
Let's think about it: If the average cost of a certain study place are about 10,000 euro a year and, say, we have ten dropouts. Does somebody (the state or the university) get 100,000 euro paid onto his bank account? I don't think so, because in a lot of courses, it doesn't actually matter whether you're teaching 100 or 150 students because most of the costs are fixed (the only thing that varies are the average costs of the college place depending on the number of students). On the other hand, is it really fair to consider the money spent on a college dropout lost? There are a lot of succesful college dropouts (and if you're using the reasoning from the "Stifterverband" they're actually earlier generating money in the economy than they're still studying counterparts at the university).
But we haven't faced the most important (and what actually should have been the first) question yet: What is a college dropout? Someone who quits college completely or someone who just switches his college courses? (Or some variation of this...). Think of someone who begins studying computer science as major and math as minor and finds out that she's just more a math type and therefore swaps her major and minor. Would you call her a dropout (she might turn up in some statistic as such)? Did she do any economical damage to the state (perhaps there were some slight administrative costs)?
What I want to say is, that some people have (in my opinion) far too simple views on this topic. I myself have actually no idea how you can calculate the cost of a college dropout and I even don't know how to find a good definition of a college dropout, but I think we should sort out this kind of questions first, before we are going to throw are trusty old Humboldtian university ideas over board and begin to restrict access to the universities and lose the academic liberties.
Monday, 12 May 2008
Do you know where the first book in Switzerland was printed?
I do, or at least I do know, where the first dated print was made in Switzerland. It was 1470 in the small village Beromünster when the seventy years old canon Helias Helye decided, it would be a nice idea to have a printed issue of the Mammotrectus (some kind of bible-related dictionary written by Marchesino da Reggio). By the way, Beromünster is always worth a visit as it is a really beautiful small village with over 1000 years of history (the site of the printing, a medieval tower called Schlössli - engl. little castle - is still around and is nowadays a museum with a reconstruction of the original printing press) and some interesting stories and personalities, such as Ignaz Paul Vital Troxler, Josef Vital Kopp or Pirmin Meier. By the way: If you're looking for good book to read this summer, I can recommend Kopp's Der sechste Tag (engl. The sixth day), an account of Kopp's youth in Beromünster around the time of the first world war. It's also an interesting portrait of a central swiss catholic milieu at the beginning of the 20th century.
Pay attention where your teaching material comes from
I just saw a promotion for teaching materials called Ideen sind etwas wert (Ideas have a value) on the official swiss education server. Their object is to promote awareness for copyright and intellectual property in music business. So, this is basically an interesting topic, especially for computer science teachers.
Now guess, who has paid for these materials? (Hint: It's not some official swiss education office, you can find the answer in this link). Of course, this made me slightly suspicious and so I took a closer look. Want a sample? There's a claim that copy protection on audio CDs was absolutely necessary because of internet piracy (although they somehow forget, that this measure mostly is a punishment for people who actually buy CDs and - along with the CDs themselves - does not work. Oh, and there's also this story of violating a very succesful standard...). They also remind you of the fact that downloading MP3s is a huge security risk (in comparision with, say, buying Sony CDs?).
Although there are some interesting and correct facts, the makers of these teaching materials seem to have missed quite a lot of the recent development in music business. But then againg, you didn't expect a well-balanced account on copyright from something sponsored from the IFPI, did you?
Now guess, who has paid for these materials? (Hint: It's not some official swiss education office, you can find the answer in this link). Of course, this made me slightly suspicious and so I took a closer look. Want a sample? There's a claim that copy protection on audio CDs was absolutely necessary because of internet piracy (although they somehow forget, that this measure mostly is a punishment for people who actually buy CDs and - along with the CDs themselves - does not work. Oh, and there's also this story of violating a very succesful standard...). They also remind you of the fact that downloading MP3s is a huge security risk (in comparision with, say, buying Sony CDs?).
Although there are some interesting and correct facts, the makers of these teaching materials seem to have missed quite a lot of the recent development in music business. But then againg, you didn't expect a well-balanced account on copyright from something sponsored from the IFPI, did you?
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