Pearson is really quite evil. They also have a near-monopoly (there are a couple of other big players, maybe?) on standard clinical psychiatric measures (like the standard IQ test, and so on) and are incredibly hardcore about going after people who try to create their own tests that measure the same thing (the weapon, natch, is spurious claims of copyright violation). These tests generally cost thousands of dollars for, essentially, a couple of notebooks full of paper tests that haven't changed for decades or longer (some of them, like the Raven's Progressive Matrices component of the Weschler IQ test, have been around for a century).
It's a tragedy that in the US, every level of education from pre-school to university is swarmed by grifters and con artists of every description. It makes it incredibly difficult to enact any real change because in any process involving substantial changes to the way things are done, at least 50% of the effort has to go to fighting off these people and preventing them from turning it into one more opportunity to loot the system.
Is it this bad in other countries?
3: I can't imagine who the hell thought it was a good idea to publish the original review. Good on them for taking the criticism, I guess.
4: Of course. MyMathLab is pretty horrible based on all our user testing. (Disclaimer: I work for a competitor.)
Yay finished renovations! We've got two weeks left (so we're told).
I don't know which of these is the more depressing description of how textbook and testing companies are sabotaging our schools.
The second.
2: This seems to be true of any large system in the US which delivers a public good: education, health care, military industrial complex, etc. Entire industries spring up at the points where these inefficient systems haemorrhage money, who then use that wealth to pry the system open more and more. It's almost impossible now to see where the grifters end and the original public service begins.
9 is what I was just thinking. The entire federal government as well as local governments are surrounded by a layer of grifters. Sometimes that's not all that big of a deal apart from wasted money, as is the case with a lot of the military-industrial complex, but when it ends up screwing over children I get really pissed.
MyMathLab is pretty horrible based on all our user testing.
I think some of my colleagues use this.
We have four weeks left but are already ~10k over budget, as in we paid a deposit roughly that size to start and on the contractor's last statement it was like that deposit had disappeared. Part of that was that we decided partway through, after structural analysis, to make our attic a usable crawl space, but also fucking knob and fucking fuck tube shit wiring asshole. Sorry, where was I? Oh right, and our 18 year old water heater had a puddle around it this morning and probably needs to go. Replace it with a tank or an on demand heater?
Oh right, and our 18 year old water heater had a puddle around it this morning and probably needs to go.
Agggh! We had a scare with our water heater a few days ago and somehow the prospect of having to do that right on top of everything else was just TOO MUCH to bear. Sympathies.
I don't know, but if you get a tank, it pays to shop around. We had all sorts of price quotes.
The entire federal government as well as local governments are surrounded by a layer of grifters.
All large pools of money are surrounded by a layer of grifters. This is true all the way down to the level of individual rich people.
15: Always, yes, but the key question is, how permeable is the protective layer around the large pool of money?
15: This is why you should avoid having any money.
A bunch of courses here started using MyMathLab in the last couple years. We used to use WeBWorK, which is open source. Also, some of my friends were tasked with making a calculus MOOC, and they made their own online homework system. Even though we have this open-source option and a house-made option, the department is making students pay something like $75/semester for MyMathLab. I assume this involves a zillion-dollar contract with Pearson at the university level.
12: Thanks for giving a little push to make this the home improvement thread rather than the education grifter thread, because the latter is rage-making. I switched to on-demand hot water a few years ago and recommend it; the slightly longer wait is balanced by the money and space savings.
On the other topic, I had some vague hope that the textbook industries' control might be undercut somewhat by increased availability of online materials and open-source software, but the more I thought through that, the less hope I had.
Before actually posting renovation photos, I posted some heinously self-deprecating bridesmaid dress photos. Enjoy.
If this is the home repair thread, can I brag that I successful changed the ballast on a light. I didn't die or anything.
Did its weight become like a book against the churning sea of modern life?
I'm sorry to say Pearson is knifecrime island's fault. Owns Penguin Books, Random House, the Financial Times, and the Economist: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pearson_PLC
23: which is a shame because Penguin and the FT are generally pretty good things.
Renovation photos added! Remember, we just spent a lot of time and $$, so no being mean.
I got my ballast very cheaply. From Ballast World.
I would gladly take your before pictures in place of what I have now. Can we do some kind of hand-me-down renovations?
My favorite part of the renovation so far was the contractor sent pictures of the attic while we were away so we could decide what to do up there and he titled the email "addict photos"
I don't know, but if you get a tank, it pays to shop around. We had all sorts of price quotes.
Now you tell us.
26: I'm clicking eagerly on your blog, but not seeing pictures.
20 - dear god almighty, that proposed dress was awful. You look like someone had attacked you with a sheet. Second one soooooooo much nicer! House looks great too, enjoy moving back in!
27 I would think your local ship's chandler should be able to handle all your ballast needs.
Ah. Looking at the pictures, Knecht is insane and asilon is right, or possibly Knecht is confused about which dress is which.
24: Huh, we have a competing product and while I don't completely disagree with your numbered points in theory it's a bit hard for me to see how they apply in actuality. (Beware, corporate shilling ahead!) Our competitive edge is that we're research backed; we review the educational literature to determine what issues have been noted in teaching the subject matter, we have cognitive scientists write cognitive models (that is, the instructional content) in conjunction with subject matter experts, and we review (and have published papers on) the efficacy of our product and iterate as necessary.
Given that, on (1) we're in the process of retooling our basic architecture at huge cost due to platform issues (i.e.., or/acle fucking up jav/a), and before that we were frantically developing new content (2) the cognitive scientists mentioned above are extremely specialized and hard to to recruit, (3) we've generally been open with external reviews (but when there has been negative press--and there has--we've responded to it, which would include downplaying but not suppressing it, so fair enough), and (4) costs don't seem that high on switching, either to us (we've had some increases in sales in some parts of the country recently) or away from us (a few years ago, when the forementioned platform issues were most egregious. I suppose we do increase costs by pushing a solution that involves both software and textbooks, but there are also educational reasons for doing so.
Some of what we do would be very hard to replicate with an open source equivalent--the framework, maybe, but the quality and consistency of the content, not so much.
Well, that felt a little gross.
The dress in the picture of the model - a skinny person who's about 4 months pregnant - looks nice. On a normal, very pregnant person - what is that fucking neck thing??
Of course they're in the MOOC business as well.
I've said before that I don't think people realize the extent to which large swaths of Community College and other open admissions schools are already MOOC-ized by textbook companies.
24 - I can't speak to MyMathLab, but I know that in the case of Blackboard, there are constraints in that a) Blackboard has some ridiculously broad patents and b) one of the major open-source competitors sounds like a soul-sucking pile of fail based on some comments from friends that I probably shouldn't repeat.
It's a hard situation, because enterprise software definitionally isn't the sort of thing people write to scratch their own itch.
I think the Jackie o dress is a nice concept, it's just the execution that turned out awful. Also it was made super shittily, with shitty fabric, and I'm having to contest the charges because they're being bitchy about letting me return it.
I don't think that education software necessarily needs to be open source, but it should be open standards. It should be possible for educators to mix and match products from different systems, or develop highly specialized educational content on a specific topic, and have that be able to plug in to some kind of standardized "educational software support bus", in such a way that the module can a) play nicely with wide variety other systems, and b) be resold to other organisations as a means of covering the cost of development. Ideally, you would then see a cottage industry of small educational content builders spring up, ensuring a broad selection of generally high-quality products.
28: I genuinely felt bad about destroying a highly functional kitchen for only superficial reasons. I had to do some soul-searching and become okay with the reality that I am a superficial person.
44: If they don't let you return it, there's got to be a terrific/awful Halloween costume in there somewhere! It's amazingly bad.
The model was pregnant? I thought, Of course it looked bad, heebie, you need to buy a maternity dress.
It almost looks like you're wearing a 17th-Century-style three-piece suit. Like this one. You could have rocked a powdered wig with it.
I agree with 45 in principle but defining "playing together well" in the educational space in a meaningful way is hard. There isn't a single unifying framework of education outside software. (And if there is, it's wrong.) Our stuff does work with some standard LMS setups (I think), but I'm not an expert in that side of things and am mystified by it.
I don't understand maternity fashion, which is why I don't let myself shop from the marked-down maternity rack at Target unless it's a really good deal and I'm really sure no one will be able to tell, but I'm pretty sure a structured sheath like that shouldn't show your belly button.
Blackboard itself is a soul-sucking pile of fail.
50: It's about time for that style to come back. (Although I'd want a different level of contrast between the vest and the rest of the suit.)
53 is also clearly correct.
I can has male gaze and I still don't know where you're coming form, knecht. Definitely on the side of the frumpy and matronly here.
The renovations are also nice.
We had a contractor by this morning who is going to do something very expensive to our windows which doesn't involve replacing them with the modern windows that almost everybody tells us we should obviously have. He pointed out that some of our previous contractors (the painters) had managed to sand a lot of the panes of glass, meaning we'll have to lose the cool old rolled glass panes in some of the windows. Dealing with contractors: the worse!
I'm just hoping we don't have giant ice dams this winter that cause e.g. the ceiling of our porch (and half of my office) to collapse.
Oh, I would wear heebie's original dress! I like the interesting folds at the collars. But I sort of prefer interesting to flattering. (That may be why Lee has decided she should buy my clothes, which made me angry and hurt my feelings even though she's too lazy to actually go through with it and try to prep me up.)
Unless I've looked at the wrong dresses, isn't dress #2 clearly more revealing and therefore better from the MG perspective?
But c'mon, it's a bridesmaid dress, which means presumably you'd have a few people looking like the drawing and then heebie looking like the maternity version of the drawing didn't work out. People would feel bad for her! (I wanted to say "the audience," but that sounds inappropriate for a wedding. The guests, her fellow guests!)
Though dress #2 is exactly the kind of flowy thing I'd be tempted to buy from a maternity discount rack, I acknowledge.
Also I really like the conversation on educational software and the like that's going on here when I'm not one of the people talking over it.
28: I genuinely felt bad about destroying a highly functional kitchen for only superficial reasons. I had to do some soul-searching and become okay with the reality that I am a superficial person.
Hey now! Speaking from personal experience, I can assure you that you could have destroyed the original a lot more in the service of your renovations. You were very restrained! I should get the photos of our kitchen at its most gutted off my phone and into the Flickr pool to demonstrate.
I wouldn't characterize the former state of our kitchen as "highly functional" but I will confess that people would routinely walk in and be like "oh, I love your kitchen!" to which I got to say, "Thanks! We're about to tear it out completely because we hate everything about it."
rfts I thought were destroying your kitchen in the service of eliminating its Old Ones-summoning non-Euclidean geometry? That seems like a pretty good motivation to fully gut it. (Sorry if I'm violating the sanctity of millions of hideos off-blog things screaming as they stare with their their unseeing off-blog eyes.)
62.2: I thought stepping over conversations was the point of eclectic web magazines.
Anyway, educational software is awesome (I'm having a blast with Duolingo right now) in concept but it does play into increasing the role of large incumbents in the educational industrial complex. Since we've become part of, uh, a one stop shop, I can at least take comfort that what I work on is better than the alternative (the aforementioned product) and is measurably increasing outcomes for a group of people who really deserve not to be fucked around with half-assed math software. (This is the positive spin.)
rfts I thought were destroying your kitchen in the service of eliminating its Old Ones-summoning non-Euclidean geometry? That seems like a pretty good motivation to fully gut it. (Sorry if I'm violating the sanctity of millions of hideos off-blog things screaming as they stare with their their unseeing off-blog eyes.)
True! Though on the other hand that means it was in fact "highly functional" from an Elder God's point of view.
H-G, I really like the new sitting room. It's beautiful.
The dress is hilarious/horrifying. You look lovely in the replacement, though!
I have lovely but somewhat generic taste in clothing, thank you very much.
70: I have it on good authority she only wears see-through white shirts but is too modest to mention it.
Besides, it's not about the dress itself, it's about the fit, which is just plain incorrect. As noted above, one should not see a belly button through properly fitted clothing, no matter the style. (Well, unless it's sheer. But that's different.)
Did you not find anything about me then Knecht?
I actually gasped at the original dress and so then had to show C, who said "yikes".
Right. I was okay with the original dress, although skeptical that it would look okay at 36 weeks pregnant. I assumed, since it was a maternity dress, that they'd introduce darts and such for the more bulging among us.
78: Same thing happened here. And it's his job to know when things fit or not. (Which does make him invaluable. Except for when he points out that something I want to pretend fits doesn't.)
80 - oh, if I had a photo of those, you'd be on my side!
You did a great service to humanity, h-g, in amusing us with that picture. The dress should be burned if they won't take it back; it's been a very very bad no good dress.
I don't see anything wrong with either dress.
Also, I hope nothing I've said has come off as unkind! Not meant as such, at all. I should start taking pictures of me stuck in various items of clothing, which happens frequently when trying things on.
... except for the fact they're not edible.
Damn. You really are scary.
Heebie looks great as Benjamin Franklin.
I am not offended, P! (Or anyone else.) When I put it on for Jammies, we both had one of those teenage laughing fits where you can't catch your breath and are in grave danger of peeing your pants. (Jammies, gasping for air, "Where...is...your...neck...!")
You were smiling more broadly in that picture.
Yes well obviously an edible dress would be preferable, but it doesn't seem fair to describe a dress as horrid merely for being non-edible, given the current state of the clothing market.
Under state law, a public university in Texas can remove a tenured professor if he or she gets two successive unsatisfactory annual reviews.
Doesn't this mean public university professors in Texas can't really get tenure as it's commonly understood ?
That HG should attend as Dolley Madison rather than as Ben Franklin is so obvious it need not even be said.
Perusing deeper into the pool is definitely worth doing, even besides the fashion debate and HG's lovely renovations.
I've forgotten how to access the flickr pool, but I'd enjoy seeing the renovation. (And, I suppose, to see what the dress fight is about...)
A quick hint as to how to dip a toe in that pool?
If you were ever admitted, then it should show up on your flickr account under your groups. If you weren't, email Heebie and/or Ogged for an invite. (Maybe someone else too, but I can't remember.)
