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Date: 20 February 2006
To: All Participants
From: Arthur Harkins and John Moravec
Subject: Supporting the University’s Strategic Vision

Our Basic Concerns

The University of Minnesota is at a crossroads in its path for success in the 21^st century. With a goal to become one of the top three public research universities in the world within a decade, the University is engaged in an ambitious strategic repositioning process. We are concerned that the majority of recommendations from the committees are leading us in a direction of reactive followership and potential stagnation. Rather than putting forth ambitious goals for the future of the University, the reports back conventional catch-up models over a call for “leapfrogging” to preferred future leadership. If the University ultimately engages in a plan to “catch-up” to other institutions, we are concerned that the likelihood of the University falling further behind in global competitiveness rankings will significantly increase.
(Read more …)

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

(Minneapolis, February 20, 2006) – Arthur Harkins and John Moravec today released action steps they believe the University of Minnesota should take to become one of the world’s top three public research universities within the coming decade.

Their effort is independent of the University’s official strategic repositioning process.  It is intended to provide a list of proactive suggestions to help guarantee the University’s strategic positioning outcome.  In the spirit of open sourcing, they encourage feedback to the ideas put forward. (Read more …)

The Savvy Technologist recorded a podcast interview with Ray Kurzweil and notes:

One of his main points was that most people don’t appreciate the exponential nature of technological advancement. Most change appears linear in the near term, but the linear model breaks down once the timeframe gets out beyond a few years.

Link to the blog post.

(Cross-posted from the ULA blog.)

Our workshop with Verna Allee on February 1 was a great success!

If you registered for the workshop and would like an electronic copy of the handout materials, please send a request by email to ula@umn.edu.

Victoria News recently published an interesting article on Singularitarians in Canada whcih compared Singularitarianism with religion:

At first blush, Singularitarianism may seem like a religion and has even earned from critics the label “Rapture of the Nerds.” But Singularitarianism differs from religion in one crucial aspect: its belief doesn’t depend on a supernatural power influencing human affairs. Singularitarians rely only on the evidence and patterns scientists have tested and observed in the natural universe.

All said, however, the article does a good job at describing what the Technological Singularity is about and what it might mean for us.

Link to the Victoria News article.

While the “dot edu” bubble has generated much interested in pedagogical technologies, issues of how the technologies are implemented and integrated into the curriculum typically do not enter the discussion. Poor implementation is perhaps a leading reason for why the dot edu boom has done little to actually improve student learning.

LiveScience.com reports on a new project sponsored by the National Science Foundation:

“Up until now, the personal computer’s potential to be a valuable teaching and learning tool has been stymied by its ’soulless’ nature,” says Baylor, a professor of instructional systems at Florida State University’s Research of Innovative Technologies for Learning (RITL). “We’re using computers to simulate human beings in a controlled manner so we can investigate how they affect and persuade people.”

Using cognitive and emotional feedback, the researchers are investigating how to better implement technologies for improved student learning. There is hope.

Solution Watch writes about coComment:

The way it works is very simple. When you signup to coComment, you are given a bookmarklet that you are asked to add to your browser. Then, the next time you come across a blog post that you want to comment on, click on the bookmarklet before commenting. You will then see coComment logo and your username come up next to the submit button of the comment form to show that it has been enabled (clicking on it will show information about coComment). Click on submit and you will see a message saying that coComment has processed the comment and added it to your conversation page.

…

Once you have used coComment to track comments on a blog, you will then be able to track it in the “Your Conversations” section. The conversations section will show a list of every post that you have used coComment on.

“Web2.0″ lives!

The Ottawa Business Journal reports that Google,

is poised to replace email as the most-used digital thanks to higher-speed connections and the ever-growing mountain of digital data. The company predicts the scope of search, while still based on text-based key words, will expand to include digital data held on devices such as PCs, mobile phones, digital cameras and personal video recorders.

And,

Deloitte also sees significant improvements in the linkage between humans and technology. Natural language speech recognition and voice synthesis will likely be combined with basic artificial intelligence offering a wide range of new services, the company says.

Link to the original article.