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Cheney caught in a lie again

Cheney needs to check his facts:

“Xeni Jardin: During last night’s vice presidential debate, Dick Cheney advised viewers interested in his version of the facts about Halliburton to visit factcheck.com. Evidently, he meant to direct them to factcheck dot ORG, but mis-spoke. Factcheck dot COM redirects you to GeorgeSoros.com which contains arguments on “why we must not re-elect President George Bush.” Whups. :)” – from BoingBoing Blog.

From http://blog.johnkerry.com/blog/archives/003152.html

Cheney Met Edwards In and Out of the Senate

During The Vice Presidential Debate, Cheney Said The First Time He Met Edwards Was At The Debate That Night. During the first vice presidential debate, Vice President Cheney said: “In my capacity as vice president, I am the president of the senate, the presiding officer, I’m in the senate most tuesdays in session. The first time I met you was when you walked on the stage tonight.”

HOWEVER

Cheney Thanked Edwards At the National Prayer Breakfast. Addressing the National Prayer Breakast, Cheney said: “Thank you. Thank you very much. Congressman Watts, Senator Edwards, friends from across America and distinguished visitors to our country from all over the world, Lynne and I honored to be with you all this morning.” [FDCH Political Transcripts, Cheney Remarks at the National Prayer Breakfast, 2/1/01]

Senator Edwards Escorted Elizabeth Dole When She Was Sworn In As North Carolina’s Other Senator. Elizabeth Dole was sworn in as North Carolina’s other senator on January 8, 2003. Gannet News Service wrote: “As per Senate tradition, Sen. John Edwards, D-N.C., escorted her.” [Gannet News Service, 1/8/03]

• Dole Took The Senate Oath Administered By Vice President Dick Cheney. According to Gannet News Service: “[Dole] raised her right hand and took the oath administered by Vice President Dick Cheney, the Senate president.” [Gannet News Service, 1/8/03]

• Dole Was Also Escorted By Her Husband, Bob Dole. Gannet News Service wrote: “Her husband, former Senate majority leader and GOP presidential candidate Bob Dole, also was by her side.” [Gannet News Service, 1/8/03]

“[Elizabeth Dole] carried her grandmother’s Bible and was escorted by her husband and Edwards as Vice President Dick Cheney administered the oath.” [Charlotte Observer, 1/8/03]
Posted by Ari Rabin-Havt on October 5, 2004 at 11:20 PM

2004 10 06 ernie Politics Comments (0) Permalink

Plagiarism links

Plagiarism is an issue for faculty and students on virtually every campus.

One site at MWC (or UMW if you wanna) that defines plagiarism is “Understanding Plagiarism,” by Jeffrey W. McClurken, Assistant Professor, Dept. of History and American Studies.

Today, I came across the site “Plagiarism” by Sharon Stoerger MLS, MBA. ( Thanks to Neat New Stuff) Stoerger’s work contains over one hundred links to items arranged into categories that include articles, case studies, information for instructors and students, as well as additional resources.

Definitely worth checking out.

2004 09 28 ernie Teaching Comments (0) Permalink

With God on Our Side

“With God On Our Side” by Bob Dylan was released in 1964 on his album The Times They are A-Changin’. It think that song echoed the feelings of many of us that the world seemed to be headed for self-annihilation.

I was thinking about the song yesterday while working in the garden, some 40 years after its release. It doesn’t seem that the world is as close to nuclear war as it was then. If we take it that the end of the cold war and collapse of the Soviet Union alleviated that threat, then maybe god was on our side, if you give, as is currently popular, President Reagan some of the credit for that. But we paid the price.

God in fact punished us because Reagan was president and the policies he and his cronies encouraged, and implemented through legislation and decrees, have done nothing but hurt this country for 20 years or more.

It’s a good song, though. “Masters of War” on Freewheelin Bob Dylan is another great one – with Dick Cheney being the poster boy for that song.

2004 09 12 ernie Commentary
Politics Comments (0) Permalink

The usual: Republicans slander and lies

Once again the RNC showed its colors at its convention this week. The speeches were particularly hateful, slanderous,and filled with lies. Who can believe or trust them? They want my vote? I know I can do better than that.

Here are some links that I found interesting to read on the subject:

Lies, Damned Lies, and Convention Speeches
Smear and Pivot
Feel the Hate

Why doesn’t the RNC deal with the real issues, such as the economy, health care, and quality of life for our society?

2004 09 03 ernie Politics Comments (0) Permalink

The Universal Computer

In his book “The Universal Computer The Road From Leibniz To Turing,” cover
Martin Davis presents a history of the development of logic that focus on creating a system in which computation is purely symbolic .

Starting with Leibniz’s ‘wonderful idea’ – a language based on an alphabet whose “elements represented not sounds, but concepts. A language based on such an alphabet should make it possible to determine by symbolic calculation which sentences written in the language were true and what logical relationships existed among them.” In his exposition he takes a clear path from Leibniz to Boole to Frege to Cantor to Hilbert to Godel and then to Turing. As a former student of mathematics (in the 60’s and 70’s, and current teacher of computer science (since the 80’s) my appreciation of his exposition was enhanced by my own recollections of the names and events he describes. Furthermore, he gives you the feeling that you’re reading something written by an insider – telling us stories and tidbits that we on the outside can enjoy and appreciate. The book is nicely done with extensive notes. Give it a read when you get the chance.

A more detailed review is available at “Read This! The MAA Online book review column” , by Mark Johnson.

2004 09 02 ernie Books Comments (0) Permalink

Internet Statistics

I typically give my students the assignment to find how many hours, on the average, American’s spend on the Internet per week. The usual approach is to search using Google. This brings up some results, but the results are often not current. A reliable source for current information is ClickZ Stats in the section traffic pattern .
Some other sites to consider are

2004 08 29 ernie About the Internet and the Web Comments (0) Permalink

Using a Blog in my Internet Class

I’m going to be having my students use blogs in the course CPSC 104, a course without prerequisites about the Internet.

I’m assuming that a blog will provide one outlet for the writing I want them to do in the class. I’m particularly concerned about writing for the Web in ways that are interesting, informative, and substantial. I feel pretty comfortable with ways to do that, since I’ve been doing that with students for sometime, but not through a blog. I also want to use a blog as a means to have students think about presentation issues and some elementary HTML. I will eventually want them to include hyperlinks and images in their blog entires, and I’m assuming (again) that some will want to spruce/spice up their blog entries.

Questions I have deal with how to introduce students to using a blog in ways that allow them to How to deal with the notion of a blog in a structured way. Some thoughts are for me to:

  • introduce the notion of a blog and show several examples
  • include in a list of HW questions they have to answer, some questions about blogs and also ask them to name, briefly describe, and give the URLs for 3 blogs they find interesting
  • show them in class how to set up a blog with blogger.com
  • have them do an in-class lab where they set up a blog at blogger.com
  • over a week or so, give them some specific topics to write about in their blogs
  • at the end of the first week of their using a blog, we’ll talk about RSS and show them how to use a news aggregator to check on other blogs.
  • during the second week of their using a blog require them to include one or more hyperlinks in a blog entry
  • After that we’ll see where it all goes – what other things they want to do with HTML.
2004 08 21 ernie Teaching Comments (0) Permalink

Blogmarks

Here’s a list of links about blogs that come from my bookmark list.

Blog Software

Blog Software

BLOGGER

One of the first free blogspots.

Blogging Resources

Resources compiled by Virginia Montecino.

Bloglines | Free, Web-Based News Aggregator

Bloglines a free Web-Based News aggregator

Blogs in Education

Blogs in Education

blogs+education

blogs and education

Educational Bloggers’ Network :

Educational Blogger Network

Flash: Blogging Goes Corporate

A story about corporate blogging from Wired

Freedom to Tinker

Freedom Tinker blog

Greymatter – Weblog/Journal Software

Greymatter Software

Howstuffworks "How Blogs Work"

A good account about blogs and blogging from “How Stuff Works.”

ITS Center for Instructional Technology

ITS Center Instructional Technology unc blog services applications

movabletype.org

movabletype blog software

MT Plugin Directory

MT Plugin Directory

News Is Free: Top News

A news aggregator useful for reading blogs

Radio UserLand : What is Radio UserLand?

radio userland blog software

The Chronicle: 6/6/2003: Scholars Who Blog

An article from the Chronicles about scholars who blog!

The Weblog Tool Roundup

A typically good roundup of blogging tools.
2004 08 21 ernie Interesting Web Sites Comments (0) Permalink

Submitting Assignments

A rhetorical question: What will students need to know to be able to submit an assignment on a Web page with a specific format?

We could make up a form they fill out, with little work on their part, but why not have students create the tools they need? This goes along with my previous post about having student learn what they need to know rather than what an external authority – the instructor/text book tells them they should learn.

Let’s start with what the submission needs to look like – we’ll start at http://people.umw.edu/~ernie/handin.html

If I’m going to be working with that then we’ll have to come up with the requirements for a program that will produce a Web page of that format.

We can start with the source – in good XHTML format, and then we’ll have to determine how to prompt for a file name, open a file, read it, and write it to the file that’s acting as the source for the Webpage.

There is also the issue of directories, files, and permissions. Some of that can be handled through the materials I used in the data driven Websites course I did.

The next entries will deal with the details in C++ and Java.

2004 08 19 ernie Teaching Comments (0) Permalink

Starting the semester

Class start this Monday, August 23, 2004, at Mary Washington College of the University of Mary Washington – we all know it’s not the best or even a good name for the U, but it’s what it is.

It’s what I do for a living, it’s my life’s work, and (occasionally) an all-encompassing passion. Still, with a really enjoyable summer behind me, there’s a reluctance to get fully engaged before the classes start.

I decided to spend some time thinking about my teaching – with only paper and pen handy. After I got real comfortable in the hammock outdoors, I eventually came up the thought that what I ought to be doing is

teaching students what they need to know rather than what I think they should learn

The point I’m making is that the courses should be project or problem oriented. Trying to get students involved in the basic principles and technologies by setting tasks they need to accomplish and/or problems they need to solve. This needs to be done within the context of a body of knowledge, for several reasons:

  • Students need a grounding framework they can work within. They need resources that can help them feel that they are on a stable, but not restrictive, path.
  • Having a context will make it more reasonable to provide examination/testing/evaluation mechanisms.
  • We don’t need to pretend that the body of knowledge doesn’t exist. It should be acknowledged

To start with in

  • CPSC 104 – The Internet: Technology, Information, and Issues We’re going to be working with a blog. The idea here is that the students will be immediately presented with a task of putting something on the Web. Since the course is also writing intensive, this blog will provide on outlet for the student’s writing.
  • CPSC 220 – Computer Science I On the first day, since we have a lab period, students will have to develop an algorithm, and then implement a solution to the problem of finding the largest of three input values. The algorithm should not be too difficult, but entering the program and compiling it may be a challenge for some.
  • CPSC 321 – Advanced Data Structures Here students will be asked to examine an implementation, in Java the language for the course which they most likely don’t know, of a binary search algorithm. They should be familiar with the algorithm. Then they have to determine a precise count of the maximum number of probes to determine an element isn’t in the list. This determination needs to be accompanied by a reasoned exposition of how they developed the statement of the maximum number of probes into an ordered set of N items. Then they’ll have to write a program to perform the calculation indicated by the formula/expression they derive.

That’s the overall plan, and we’ll see how it works.

2004 08 19 ernie Teaching Comments (0) Permalink