Google Hangout

Google has what is called the Hangout, that looks promising...  Tried it a couple of months ago, and we could not get technical problems solved...

Maybe it has gotten better, and if so, I could see moving to it...

New Income Stream For Teachers

One reason I am so anti-"intellectual" "property" "rights" is it so constricts creativity and distribution.  As copyrights is dying out, artists are learning to market their work themselves.  The guitarist for Dire Straights has a tour coming up.  Now, of course you can buy tickets from his website, nothing new there.  But you can also pre-order a recording of the live concert from his website as well.  

Sadly his website seems not up to the task, as people are complaining an inability to make a purchase.  Sigh.  Yahoo offers bulletproof ecommerce solutions for $30 a month but people still spend megadollars reinventing the ecommerce site wheel.

Now, this marketing in some ways is nothing new, because the Grateful Dead used this method to promote their record sales, that is the bootleg tape.

My guess it is audio only since the media is a USB stick, but one in the shape of the fellows famous guitar.

So, if you are giving a live seminar somewhere, record it, and sell it on your website, or pre-sell it. Make it an event.

Why?

I've been listening to this for over 40 years.  And there is absolutely no improvement, or help from any quarter, or a single plan on offer to make a change.  I guess USA must end, then things might improve. In the meantime, everyone is on their own.

Catalogs Are King

I was on the U Washington campus the other day so I dropped in at the offices of the once glorious ASUW Experimental College.   I mentioned to the nice receptionist I had taught for 25 years with them, but had to decline once they cut catalog distribution.  I mentioned in the heyday they put out 140,000 catalogs and got 7,000 enrollments each quarter, a 5% response rate, which is fantastic.

I asked how they were doing now.  She looked it up.  20,000 catalogs and 1000 enrollments.

Hmmm...  so 20k is 1/7th of 140k, 1k is 1/7th 7k.  Exact!

Still 5% response rate.

The paper catalog is king in noncredit continuing education.

Studying the Classics Today

Ted Turner studied classics at Brown and this aggravated his father...

If you are going to stay on at Brown, and be a professor of Classics, the courses you have adopted will suit you for a lifetime association with Gale Noyes. Perhaps he will even teach you to make jelly. In my opinion, it won't do much to help you learn to get along with people in this world. I think you are rapidly becoming a jackass, and the sooner you get out of that filthy atmosphere, the better it will suit me.

What a strange view of education, to help you get along with people.  The word means "to lead out.." (presumably the darkness...) to enlighten.  You learn to get along with people, or not, by age 5 or 6.  The point of an education is to be able to have a wider reference to draw on when navigating these treacherous waters.

I am reading Plutarch right now, The Makers of Rome, and the parallels to events today are remarkable.    I am convinced one reason the classics are now denigrated is that it in fact tips people off as to various power-scams, and the results.  Ignorance is victory for the powers that be.

Another thing I note is how these people would kill themselves rather than suffer ignominy.   Christianity takes bad times as having meaning, and even the idea of "time in the desert" as a purifying thing, a stark contrast in those times.

Ted was going to need that perspective he got from the classics later, when his father shot himself to death.  His old man could have used a classical education.

Why You need to make Your Course Free on youtube

Here is a common enough email...

Dear John,

After watching all of your videos (Some of them many times) I realized I MUST take your course. Thank you so much for providing humanity with such immensely valuable content and at no cost. I find your insights into economy and your way of teaching absolutely genius.

Anyway, I currently live in Barcelona, Spain and am trying to get an import/export business going and I really really want to take your class, but it would be realistically impossible to attend live sessions at 7-9PM with a +8hr time difference. What do you advise? How much would I miss without the sessions? Or is there an alternative?

Thank you very much.

Sincerely yours,

--
A D

Your youtubes sell your class. Some 50% of google searches end up on youtube, and google put youtubes high on searches because the front run the videos with ads from which they make money.

I learned from Gary North.

The First Known MOOC: The Jews

I have many good and original ideas.  The original ones are not good, and the good ones are never original.  MOOC means massive open online course.  The problem is having 40,000 people taking an online poetry course, and having them all understand it.  So my great idea what to note there would be one in 20 who would be natural teachers who could form up small groups and get the sense of the content.  Brilliant!  Except, my great idea about having natural teachers emerge in MOOCs has been done.  Nehemiah chapter 8:

2 And Ezra the priest brought the law before the congregation both of men and women, and all that could hear with understanding, upon the first day of the seventh month.
3 And he read therein before the street that was before the water gate from the morning until midday, before the men and the women, and those that could understand; and the ears of all the people were attentive unto the book of the law.
4 And Ezra the scribe stood upon a pulpit of wood, which they had made for the purpose; and beside him stood Mattithiah, and Shema, and Anaiah, and Urijah, andHilkiah, and Maaseiah, on his right hand; and on his left hand, Pedaiah, and Mishael, and Malchiah, and Hashum, and Hashbadana, Zechariah, and Meshullam.
5 And Ezra opened the book in the sight of all the people; (for he was above all the people;) and when he opened it, all the people stood up:
6 And Ezra blessed the LORD, the great God. And all the people answered, Amen, Amen, with lifting up their hands: and they bowed their heads, and worshipped the LORD with their faces to the ground.
7 Also Jeshua, and Bani, and Sherebiah, Jamin, Akkub, Shabbethai, Hodijah, Maaseiah, Kelita, Azariah, Jozabad, Hanan, Pelaiah, and the Levites, caused the people to understand the law: and the people stood in their place.

OK, it is not online, but it was the closest thing at that time.  So with Ezra teaching everyone at once, Jeshua and so on worked the crowd to make sure everyone understood what Ezra was teaching, as the people stood in their place.

Good ideas are never new.  But we need to update it, and have a means of providing a platform for those natural teachers in the crowd in a MOOC, who can then begin teaching online in their own right.

Feel free to forward this to three of your friends.