Bandcamp Recs: Escapist Tunes and Mood-Lifting Grooves to Melt Away the Blues – KQED
Posted: May 1, 2020 at 7:45 pm
Chit Chat Records' 'Brazilian Compilation Series Vol. 1'; Orlando Julius' 'Disco Hi-Life; Brijean's 'Walkie Talkie.'(Courtesy of the artists)
Since shelter in place started, Ive lost my taste for mainstream pop songs.
At first, being home alone 24/7 made me antsy. But now, instead of hustling from work to gym to party, Im meditating, journaling and trying to become fascinated with my inner life instead of fixating on a stressful external world I cant control.
I noticed my listening habits changing along with this shift in lifestyle. Pop songs packaged into a neat 3.5 minutes feel too structured and rushed when theres nowhere to be. And the lyrics of mainstream releases describe things that belong to the old world. None of us are going to clubs and dancing with friends or strangers; relationships have taken on completely new shapes.
When this all started, I turned to an old favorite album, Journey in Satchidananda by Alice Coltrane, featuring avant-garde saxophonist Pharoah Sanders. Glittering with Coltranes resonant harp playing, the albums mood is uplifting yet pensive, contemplative yet serenea perfect soundtrack for making peace with a difficult reality while hopefully looking towards the future. Coltrane composed it shortly after the death of her husband, the legendary saxophonist John Coltrane, and it marked the start of a spiritual journey that eventually led to her opening an ashram in Southern California.
Playing that album on repeat renewed my appreciation for longwinded sonic explorations. My playlists suddenly became full of Coltrane, Sanders, trumpet player Don Cherry and pianist Lonnie Liston Smith, all top-tier jazz players whose music took a spiritual, psychedelic bend in the 70s. That eventually led me to Nigerian disco and Afrobeat, Brazilian tropical house and other genres with funky pulses, smooth grooves and luxuriously lengthy runtimes.
With Oakland-based streaming service Bandcamp waiving its fees on May 1 so that 100% of sales go to independent artists and labels affected by the pandemic, what better time to indulge in unhurried, mood-elevating and escapist tunes? Here are some recommendations sure to inspire a little joy and maybe a kitchen dance partysomething we all need right now.
Visit link:
Bandcamp Recs: Escapist Tunes and Mood-Lifting Grooves to Melt Away the Blues - KQED
Where is Real Marigold Hotel 2020 filmed? – The Sun
Posted: at 7:45 pm
THE Real Marigold Hotel series four will see eight celebrities head to India to trial out retirement there.
But where did they film the fourth series?
The group will head six thousand miles away from home TO the colourful coastal city of Puducherry, and then on to the beautiful town of Rishikesh.
The celebrities will have have time to reflect on the ups and downs of life, open up to each other and find out if they could spend their golden years there.
Here we take a look at the area they are staying in.
This coastal town is on the verge of the Indian Ocean.
Puducherry is one of the most popular tourist spots for national and international visitors.
Its inhabitants are drawn from all parts of the world is situated on the outskirts of the city.
There are several temples, churches, monuments, parks, and mosques which attract tourists.
Set in the foothills of the Himalayas, this idyllic location offers breathtaking scenery.
Rishikesh is a city in Indias northern state of Uttarakhand, beside the Ganges River.
The river is considered holy, and the city is renowned as a center for studying yoga and meditation.
Temples and ashrams line the eastern bank around Swarg Ashram, a traffic-free, alcohol-free and vegetarian enclave upstream from Rishikesh town.
Britt Ekland, Duncan Bannatyne, Dame Zandra Rhodes, Paul Chuckle, Henry Blofeld, John Altman, Susie Blake and Barbara Dickson arrive in India and get their first taste of the chaotic traffic on the bus to Puducherry and their new home by the sea.
Although Britt struggles with the heat and Paul is struck down
with an upset stomach, the group throw themselves into their new surroundings ready to embrace retired life in India.
Keen to see what the region has to offer, the senior citizens embrace everything within the local vicinity, including an early morning trip to the beach for a dip in the Indian Ocean, a visit to a traditional coffee house and a trip to Puducherrys vibrant and colourful Goubert market.
Whilst yoga enthusiast Duncan wastes no time immersing himself into the local way of life, he encourages John to join him as they embrace this ancient Indian practice together.
Susie and Henry decide to visit an Ayurvedic doctor to see if he can help with the aches and pains of old age. Susie is impressed with the doctors healing hands, and shocked at his precise diagnosis when he reveals more than expected.
The show returns TONIGHT (April 30, 2020).
You can watch it on BBC One at 9pm.
It will run for 4 episodes.
See the rest here:
Chinmayanand case: HC rejects law students allegations of bias, harassment against SIT – The New Indian Express
Posted: at 7:45 pm
Express News Service
LUCKNOW: In a major turn of events, the Allahabad High Court has rejected allegations of bias and harassment against UP government's Special Investigation Team (SIT) which is probing Swami Chinmayanand sexual abuse case. The allegations were raised in a complaint filed in the court by the Shahjahanpur law student, who has charged Swami Chinmayanand with sexual harassment.
Consequently, the court, on Thursday, directed the concerned trial court to pass any order which it may deem fit and proper in accordance with law after taking cognizance on the police report.
Hearing an application filed by the law student, who has accused former Union minister Swami Chinmayanand of sexual harassment, a division bench comprising Justice Manoj Misra and Justice Deepak Verma observed that they were satisfied with the SIT probe as it had duly investigated all aspects and after a thorough investigation, had submitted a police report. Hence no further action is required, said the bench.
In her application moved before this division bench of Allahabad HC, which is monitoring the trial on SCs directive, the law student had demanded setting up of a fresh investigation team and sought action against the officials of the existing SIT for allegedly harassing and assaulting her family members. She claimed that the SIT was partial and that Chinmayanand had been offered special treatment through the course of the investigation as if he were a state guest.
The court accepted the SITs contention that it could not be labelled as biased, as it had strongly opposed Chinmayanands bail application, which resulted in a lower court refusing to grant him bail at one stage. However, the court also rejected the girls allegations of her familys harassment at the hands of SIT.
Notably, the LLM student of SS Law College, run by Mumukshu Ashram of Chinmayanand, had accused the Swami of rape and harassment for over a year. Following her complaint, Chinmayanand was booked under Sections 376 C (sexual intercourse by a person in authority), 342 (Wrongful Confinement), 354 D (stalking) and 506 (criminal intimidation) of IPC. He was arrested on September 20, 2019 and languished in Shajahanpur district jail till he got a bail from High Court on February 3, this year.
The law student and three of her accomplices were booked in the extortion case by the Special Investigation Team (SIT) on the basis of the complaint filed by Chinmayanand. All the four were accused of demanding Rs 5 crore from the former Union minister while threatening him with the release of his objectionable videos.
The law student was booked under Sections 385 (Putting person in fear of injury in order to commit extortion), 507 (Criminal intimidation by an anonymous communication), 201 (Causing disappearance of evidence), 34 (Acts done by several persons in furtherance of common intention) of IPC and Section 67 (A) of IT Act.
Read the original here:
Vinod Khannas 3rd Death Anniversary: The Actor Cleaned Toilets, Did Dishes At Oshos US Ashram After Walking Away From Films – SpotboyE
Posted: at 7:45 pm
Bollywood celebrities have been known to explore their spiritual sides and there have been many instances of it. One of these instances has been actor and politician Vinod Khanna who in 1982, walked away from the film industry to explore spirituality with Osho and shifted to Rajneeshpuram in the US at the pinnacle of his stardom. Vinod Khanna was known throughout the country as one of the most handsome men in the industry and by then had been quite successful as well. Today marks Vinod Khannas 3rd death anniversary and we take a look into his time at Oshos US Ashram.
Apparently Vinod Khanna wanted to explore his spiritual side and after moving to Rajneeshpuram spent most of his time cleaning dishes and working in the gardens there. In an old interview with TOI, he had said, I was Osho's mali: I am one of the few Indians to have stayed with Osho in Rajneeshpuram, the city he built in America. I spent four years with Osho. I was his gardener, I cleaned the toilets, I did the dishes, and his clothes were tried out on me because we were, physically, of the same stature.''
Before his spiritual break, Vinod Khanna had given a lot of hits including Amar Akbar Anthony, The Burning Train, Mere Apne. He made a return to the industry in 1987 and was welcomed with open arms and starred in a lot of hit movies like Satyamev Jayate, Hulchul, Dabangg.
Image Source: Pinterest
They say the best things in life are free! Indias favourite music channels 9XM, 9X Jalwa, 9X Jhakaas, 9X Tashan, 9XO are available Free-To-Air. Make a request for these channels from your Cable, DTH or HITS operator.
Read more from the original source:
Here Are The Top 7 Websites For Free Online Education
Posted: April 30, 2020 at 12:52 pm
Photo credit: Getty
You don't need an Ivy League education to get a world-class education.
There are many online education websites that offer academic courses for a fraction of the cost of traditional colleges and universities, making them ideal for lifelong learners.
Here are7 outstanding websites to accesstonsof academic courses - for free.
Top 7 Online Education Websites
The following online education websites offer thousands of online coursesfor students and life-long learners alike. While many are fee-based courses, you can also find many free courses as well.
1. Khan Academy
Khan Academy is a non-profit whose missions is "toprovide a free, world-class education for anyone, anywhere." Khan Academy is free for both learners and teachers, and offerslessonsfor students from kindergarten through early college, with topic including math, grammar, science, history, AP exams, SAT and more.Khan Academy's founding partners include, among others, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Google, Ann & Jon Doerr and Reed Hastings.
Sample Free Courses: Algebra, Geometry, Statistics & Probability
Founded by Harvard and MIT, edX is a global non-profit that seeks to remove three barriers of traditional education: cost, location and access. edX has more than 20 million learners and 2,400 courses from a majority of the top-ranked universities in the world. Open edX is the open source platform behind edX, and it's open to educators and technologists who want to develop new educational tools. In addition to free courses, edX also offers courses for a fee.
Sample Free Courses: The Architectural Imagination (Harvard), Financial Analysis for Decision Making (Babson), Omnichannel Strategy & Management (Dartmouth)
Courserahas more than 35 million learners, 150 university partners, 2,700 courses, 250 specializations and four degrees. In addition to free courses, Coursera offers courses generally ranging from $29 - $99. Specializations and degrees are priced higher. Course instructors include experts from the world's top colleges and universities, and courses include recorded video lectures, community discussion forums and both graded and peer-reviewed coursework. You can also receive a course certificate for each course you complete.
Sample Free Courses:Machine Learning (Stanford), The Science of Well-Being (Yale), Successful Negotiation (University of Michigan)
Udemy, a global education marketplace, has 30 million students, 100,000 courses in 50 languages, 42,000 instructors and 22 million minutes of video instruction. Unlike other online education platformsdriven by content fromcolleges and universities, Udemy allows content creators to curate their own courses and teach them online.
Sample Free Courses: Introduction to Python Programming
TED-Ed is TED's award-winning youth and education arm whose mission is to share and spread ideas from teachers and students. TED-Ed has a global network of more than 250,000 teachers that serves millions of teachers and students around the world every week. TED-Ed includes innovative content such as original animated videos and a platform for teachers to create interactive lessons.
Sample Free Courses:The Mysterious Science of Pain, How Do Self-Driving Cars See, What Causes Turbulence
Codeacademy is an interactive platform that teaches you how to code in multiple different programming languages. Most free courses can be completed in less than 11 hours. Codeacademy has helped train more than 45 million learners in topics such as web development, programming, computer science and data science. Codeacademy alums work at Google, Facebook, IBM and Bloomberg, among other top companies. Codeacademy also offers a premium plan for a monthly fee.
Sample Free Courses:multiple programming languages
7.Stanford Online
Stanford Online, an education initiative at Stanford University, offers free online courses as well as professional certificates, advanced degrees and executive education. Stanford Online offers courses from Stanford's undergraduate and graduate schools, including Stanford Law School, Stanford Business School and Stanford Medical School, among others.
Sample Free Courses: Introduction to Innovation & Entrepreneurship, Entrepreneurship Through The Lens of Venture Capital, How To Learn Math
Final Thoughts
Whether you choose to supplement your existing education or learn a new skill, it's never too late to become a life-long learner. These online education courses can help you gain valuable knowledge, earn a certificate, complete a degree or simply expand your horizon.
See the original post:
Here Are The Top 7 Websites For Free Online Education
New Udemy Report Shows Surge in Global Online Education in Response to COVID-19 – Business Wire
Posted: at 12:52 pm
SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Udemy, the largest global marketplace for learning and teaching online, today released Online Education Steps Up: What the World is Learning (from Home), a special data report that provides a comprehensive look at online learning and teaching around the globe as the COVID-19 pandemic, shelter-in-place orders, and social distancing impact the world.
The new report analyzes global trends on the platform showing how people are turning to online learning to upskill, stay busy, and increase productivity. As remote working becomes the new normal, the findings reveal significantly increased demand globally across every segment:
Udemys mission to improve lives through learning has never been more vital than during todays challenging times, said Darren Shimkus, President, Udemy for Business. We remain committed to providing people and businesses around the world with affordable access to the skills they need today and in the future. The trends weve seen over the last two months represent a significant acceleration in the transformation to a new Future of Work.
The State of Online Learning
Online learning has surged as people look for ways to be productive while staying at home. Strong global growth in top-ranking professional skills includes Neural Networks (61% increase), Communication Skills (131%), and Growth Mindset (206%). Passion topics like Pilates (402% increase), Technical Drawing (920%), and Ukulele (292%), have surged as well.
Demand also correlates with shelter-in-place orders around the world. For example, the data shows a 130% growth in enrollments in the U.S., 200% in India, 320% in Italy, and 280% in Spain.
The State of Learning within Organizations
COVID-19 has translated into increased reliance on online learning as companies shift to remote work and move away from travel and in-person events and training. There has been an immense surge in enrollments in courses related to Telecommuting (21,598% increase) and Virtual Teams (1,523%), as well as Decision Making (277%), Self Discipline (237%), and Stress Management (235%).
The State of Online Teaching
There is also an increase in course creation as experts around the world are looking to share their knowledge as well as supplement their income through online teaching. Categories with the highest surge in new courses include Office Productivity (159% increase), Health and Fitness (84%), IT & Software (77%), and Personal Development (61%).
About Udemy
With a mission to improve lives through learning, Udemy is the worlds largest online learning destination that helps students, businesses, and governments gain the skills they need to compete in todays economy. Millions of students are mastering new skills from 57,000 expert instructors teaching over 150,000 online courses in topics from programming and data science to leadership and team building. For companies, Udemy for Business offers an employee training and development platform with subscription access to 4,000+ courses, learning analytics, as well as the ability to host and distribute their own content. Udemy for Government is designed to upskill workers and prepare them for the jobs of tomorrow. Eighty percent of Fortune 100 companies trust Udemy for employee upskilling. Udemy is privately held and headquartered in San Francisco with offices in Denver, Brazil, India, Ireland, and Turkey. Udemy investors include Insight Partners, Prosus (Naspers Ventures), Norwest Venture Partners, and Stripes Group.
See the original post here:
New Udemy Report Shows Surge in Global Online Education in Response to COVID-19 - Business Wire
Howard School teacher offers online education activities | News – Coastal View News
Posted: at 12:52 pm
With three daughtersOlivia, 15, Emma, 14, and Ava, 10and a career in elementary-level education, Howard School first-grade teacher Angie Torres Milleris well positioned to offer tips for home schooling to house-bound families.
Recognizing that parenting is one thing and teaching another (not to mention the near-impossible task of simultaneously working), Torres Miller said I started worrying that parents wouldnt be able to keep their kids busy. So, she started the Facebook page, Learn, Play and Grow, a space for sharing posts and videos that parents can use to help keep their kids occupied with meaningful activities.
Focusing on easy-to-make projects like using a toy dinosaur to project a large shadow that children can then outline on a big sheet of paper, or Jell-O trays with items embedded that toddlers can dig-out, Torres Miller hopes the activities can buy harried parents a short respite, Something for kids to do even for 15 minutes.
I dont want kids to take the brunt of the stress parents are feeling, she said. Thus far, 1,035 people have joined her Facebook page and Torres Millers enthusiasm is palpable when she says, It feels so good! Every day I post five activities.
Serving a wide range of kids of different ages and different needs, Torres Miller has also been providing activities for students on the autism spectrum, trying, she says, to pull-in as much as I can. All this, while continuing to teach her first-grade class at Howard School for two-hours each morning via Zoom, then taking over story time afterwards, as staff share the load of teaching specialized subjects.
I hear friends of mine say, Im ready for the kids to go back to school, Torres Miller related. She sounds an empathetic note when she adds, I feel so bad, (a lot of parents) dont know where to start. She hopes her Facebook activities provide some support for her growing online community: Im trying to helpthey seem so stuck.
To see Torres Millers Facebook educational posts, search for the group Learn, Play and Grow on Facebook.
Link:
Howard School teacher offers online education activities | News - Coastal View News
Limitations of online learning – The Hindu
Posted: at 12:52 pm
India has been under lockdown for more than a month in a desperate attempt to contain the COVID-19 pandemic. Even when the lockdown gets lifted eventually, the government may not allow large congregations in restricted physical spaces. It is almost certain that educational campuses will not be fully populated any time soon.
Universities and colleges were in the middle of the second semester of their academic year when the lockdown was enforced. There was a great deal of anxiety, particularly about the graduating batches of students, lest the ongoing session should be declared a zero semester. This prompted a number of local initiatives in response to the exigency. There were sporadic attempts from individual teachers to reach out to their students and keep them engaged. A few universities made hasty arrangements for teachers to continue to hold their classes virtually through video conferencing services such as Zoom. The transition to virtual modes was relatively less difficult for those institutions that had, even prior to the lockdown, adopted learning management system platforms like Blackboard or Moodle. All the above were well-meaning attempts, albeit somewhat impromptu, to keep the core educational processes going through this period.
Also read | Online learning out of reach for many
There was a report in the media on April 13, 2020 quoting the Chairman of the University Grants Commission (UGC) as saying, among other things, that to maintain social distancing, online learning and e-education were the only way out, and that it was the need of the hour for students, teachers and the education system as a whole. This statement was clearly meant to prepare the higher education community for the exigencies of a protracted and indefinite period of closure of campuses.
However, close on the heels of this, it was also reported that online education was likely to be adopted as a strategy to enhance the gross enrolment ratio in higher education. The Chairman of the UGC told the news agency ANI: We are seeing at this time of COVID-19 and even later when all of this (is) over, to give a push to online education. It is important for improvement in the gross enrolment ratio (GER) in the country. This prompts several questions about the appropriateness of what may well be an effective contingency measure to tide over the pandemic crisis to be deployed as a long-term strategy for enhancing enrolment in higher education. The following are three such questions: one, how far will online education help support greater access to and success in higher education among those who are on the margins? Two, how equipped are online and other digital forms of education to support the depth and diversity of learning in higher education? And three, is there an unstated political motivation for this apparent shift in strategy? We will address these questions briefly here.
Higher education today has an unprecedented influx of students who are first-generation aspirants. They have no cultural capital to bank on while struggling their way through college. Access is not merely enrolment. It also includes effective participation in curricular processes, which for those on the margins would mean first, to negotiate through language and social barriers. These students are also from the other side of the digital divide which makes them vulnerable to a double disadvantage if digital modes become the mainstay of education. Unless they receive consistent hand-holding and backstopping from teachers and peers, they tend to remain on the margins and eventually drop out or fail. It is therefore necessary to think deeply and gather research-based evidences on the extent to which online education can be deployed to help enhance the access and success rates.
Coronavirus | In the time of the pandemic, classes go online and on air
Acquisition of given knowledge that can be transmitted didactically by a teacher or a text constitutes only one minor segment of curricular content. It is this segment that is largely amenable to online and digital forms of transaction. Disciplines, particularly at the undergraduate level, which are textbook-based and pretend to be relatively stable bodies of certitudes, lend themselves somewhat to such transaction. But learning in higher education means much more than this. It involves development of analytical and other intellectual skills, the ability to critically deconstruct and evaluate given knowledge, and the creativity to make new connections and syntheses. It also means to acquire practical skills, explore, inquire, seek solutions to complex problems, learn to work in teams and more. All these by and large assume direct human engagement not just teacher-student interaction, but also peer interactions, including informal ones. Learning often happens through osmosis in social settings. Deconstructing given knowledge in relative isolation is never the same as doing it through a dynamic group process.
Arguably, some of this can, to some extent, be built on to a digital platform. But curricular knowledge has a tendency to adjust its own contours according to the mode of transaction and the focus of evaluation. It gets collapsed into largely information-based content when transacted through standard and uniform structures of teaching-learning and examination.
While digital forms of learning have the potential to enable students to pursue independent learning, conventional and digital forms of education should not be considered mutually exclusive. Online learning needs to be understood as one strand in a complex tapestry of curricular communication that may still assign an important central role to direct human engagement and social learning.
Several institutions of open and distance learning (ODL) had been established in India and other countries during the mid-1960s to 1980s. This was a consequence of explorations for less expensive models for provisioning access to higher education to new generations of aspirants. As has been argued elsewhere, ODL may also have been considered by governments at that time as a safe strategy (in the light of the many instances of campus turbulence) for managing mass aspirations for higher education without necessarily effecting large congregations on campuses (Menon, 2016). One wonders whether there is a similar unstated motivation behind the present enthusiasm for online education.
(Shyam Menon is a Professor at the Central Institute of Education, University of Delhi and former Vice Chancellor, Ambedkar University Delhi)
You have reached your limit for free articles this month.
Register to The Hindu for free and get unlimited access for 30 days.
Find mobile-friendly version of articles from the day's newspaper in one easy-to-read list.
Enjoy reading as many articles as you wish without any limitations.
A select list of articles that match your interests and tastes.
Move smoothly between articles as our pages load instantly.
A one-stop-shop for seeing the latest updates, and managing your preferences.
We brief you on the latest and most important developments, three times a day.
Not convinced? Know why you should pay for news.
*Our Digital Subscription plans do not currently include the e-paper ,crossword, iPhone, iPad mobile applications and print. Our plans enhance your reading experience.
Original post:
Limitations of online learning - The Hindu
EUFMC Now Offers Online Educational Forum – Lift and Access
Posted: at 12:52 pm
The Electric Utility Fleet Managers Conference now offers an online education connection to help people in the electric utility industry access its educational programs and to provide a forum for sharing professional knowledge.
The EUFMCs annual conference in Williamsburg, Virginia, each spring features educational presentations by experts from utility fleets and related suppliers, as well as roundtable discussions in which fleet managers can share information to help each other solve problems and improve operations.
The organizations online Education Connections at https://eufmc.com/connect.html lets anyone ask or answer questions.
EUFMC media coordinator Seth Skydel said, TheEUFMC Education Connectionis now reaching attendees regularly with valuable information on current and pertinent topics. In the Education Connection Archive visitors to the site will find questions and answers on COVID-19 response subjects related to fleet operations.
Skydel notes that, so far, topics on the site include Connecting with Shop Employees, Prioritizing Work with Operations, Maintaining Staffing, Properly Sanitizing Vehicles, and Addressing CDL Renewal Issues.
Additional topics will also be added.
Continue reading here:
EUFMC Now Offers Online Educational Forum - Lift and Access
Harvard Faculty Prepare for the Possibility of Online Classes in the Fall | News – Harvard Crimson
Posted: at 12:52 pm
After Harvard administrators announced Monday that the fall semester may take place online, faculty have begun preparing in earnest for the possibility of continued remote teaching.
This spring, instructors had less than two weeks from the day the University announced all classes would move online to the first day of online classes to transition their courses to a virtual format. If classes continue remotely in the fall, several department chairs said the summer would give them time to develop a more robust online educational model but added they may also have to cancel or postpone certain classes centered on in-person experiences.
While many faculty said earlier this semester that they felt prepared to deliver classes online, they also encountered unforeseen difficulties after the transition happened. Faced with the task of remotely proctoring students in different time zones, many shifted to open-note examinations, placing faith in the Colleges Honor Code to prevent cheating.
But now after Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences Claudine Gay told faculty in a Monday email to immediately begin planning for a possible online fall professors must figure out how to deliver an excellent and equitable learning experience for all students amid the pandemic. Gay previously said that doing so would require rigorous and creative solutions.
So far, around 300 faculty have sought out resources from the Derek Bok Center for Teaching and Learning the FASs teaching support center to help transition to online instruction, according to the centers faculty director, Robert A. Lue.
To meet the demand, the Bok Center offered faculty a variety of consultations, workshops, self-paced modules on online learning, as well as an option to request that Bok Center staff observe their courses and provide feedback.
Lue said the Bok Center is preparing for multiple different scenarios next fall and may work with several academic departments, as well as instructors of large courses, to help them plan over the summer.
One thing thats crucial is that the Harvard curriculum will be excellent. Everyone is committed to that, he said. Were going to be working super hard all summer long.
Comparative Literature chair David N. Damrosch said he and nearly all of his colleagues in the department have used Bok Center offerings to transition their courses online. He plans to encourage faculty in his department to go back to the center over the summer to develop their courses.
If in the fall, were doing a full Zoom semester, that will take some extra thought, though I think were three quarters of the way there now, Damrosch said.
Economics department chair Jeremy C. Stein said the transition has exceeded his expectations for what could be achieved online.
When the news first came out, I was like, Oh my gosh, I dont even see why we would continue the class, he said.
Stein added that getting to know his students in person in the first half of the semester made the process of moving online easier.
It is obviously a much more challenging proposition to do a semester from start to finish online, he said.
Other departments, however, have run into conundrums in attempting to conduct laboratory courses online.
Physics chair Subir Sachdev said his department will not be able to offer components of some of its classes or even entire courses if students are not able to return to campus this fall.
Sachdev said he is already considering what to do about fall courses that would typically be taught exclusively through labs, such as Physics 191: Advanced Laboratory and Physics 123: Laboratory Electronics.
If the fall is entirely remote, then we may have to completely redesign that course or offer something else in the hope that the students would take that course when they eventually come back, Sachdev said. Theres no completely online substitute for a complete lab course like Physics 191.
Director of Science Education Logan S. McCarty 96, who has been helping faculty across the Sciences division transition their courses online, said some Chemistry courses that work with toxic materials such as Chemistry 145: Experimental Inorganic Chemistry would likewise have to be postponed.
One possible solution may be to offer students three credits for taking the lecture portion of a four-credit course in the fall, then one credit for the lab component once campus reopens, McCarty said.
McCarty said the summer will offer time to transform lecture-style courses from a hastily-planned Zoom course to a high-quality Harvard X-type course, referring to Harvards online education platform. He said such courses could include filmed science demonstrations, quizzes, and guest speakers.
We could create a highly produced, polished, really good experience, where the lecture part of the class would be far superior than what weve been able to throw together on Zoom, McCarty said.
Physics professor Amir Yacoby, who helps teach the laboratory component of Physics 15b: Introductory Electromagnetism and Statistical Physics, wrote in an email that the lab staff was able to meet most of its learning goals this semester despite the remote format. The staff recorded videos of themselves conducting experiments before campus closed, and students remotely analyzed the video data, wrote papers, and participated in discussions.
This was not a typical semester. However, we have maintained active student engagement, enthusiasm, and learning despite the remote modality, Yacoby wrote.
The lab staff are discussing ways students may be able to collect data at home in the fall, Yacoby said in an interview. He added that his course already focuses on creating simple models that allow students to puzzle through phenomenon on their own.
Overall, I believe that we can replicate our activities and maintain 95 percent of our goals remotely, he said.
Staff writer James S. Bikales can be reached at james.bikales@thecrimson.com. Follow him on Twitter @jamepdx.
Staff writer Kevin R. Chen can be reached at kevin.chen@thecrimson.com. Follow him on Twitter @kchenx.
See the article here:
Harvard Faculty Prepare for the Possibility of Online Classes in the Fall | News - Harvard Crimson