Friday, January 31, 2014

Reef Fish: Verified, Signature and Proctored courses, MIT OCW, edX, Coursera and WUaS, Who are World University and School's publics?, Receiving Applications at WUaS for this autumn 2014, Open, online, WUaS, monthly business meeting is Saturday, February 8 at 9am Pacific Time




Dear Universitians,

Some further thoughts about:

'Verified, Signature and Proctored courses, MIT OCW, edX, Coursera and WUaS, Range of $30-$100 per course for verified certificate, WUaS will probably engage something like these verification systems for matriculated students, especially with our focus on students in the developing world, and plans to offer FREE (since C.C.), MIT-centric, WUaS university degrees' ...

http://scott-macleod.blogspot.com/2014/01/maine-atlantic-salmon-verified.html ...

where graduate students heading to become professors (would do some proctoring) and possibly in Google + group video Hangouts. G+ Hangouts just upped their time from 2 hours to 8 hours for free, which is great.

In WUaS's outreach to best students, WUaS may next advertise in the Fettes College alumni magazine in Edinburgh, Scotland, as well as its alumni notes. (I went to Fettes College for a year in 1976-77, and it attracts a lot of high achievers from around the world, for whom free and MIT might be very attractive, and all of whom speak English).

P (and all), please keep spreading the word in India (and to people you know). Free and MIT (and online) WUaS undergraduate degrees may appeal greatly to parents and grandparents around the world as well.

Receiving Applications at WUaS for this autumn 2014
http://worlduniversityandschool.blogspot.com/2014/01/receiving-applications-at-wuas-for-this.html ...

Open, online, WUaS, monthly business meeting is Saturday, February 8 at 9am Pacific Time ... http://worlduniversityandschool.blogspot.com/2014/01/february-8-2014-monthly-business.html ...

Best,
Scott
















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Thursday, January 30, 2014

Tripod Fish: Bagpiping, BBC documentary on the great Gordon Duncan's piping - 'Just for Gordon,' A few, further, musical and piping thoughts ... in words and tones ...


Bagpiping ...

Hi Lore,

You may have seen this already, but here's a very good, hour-long, BBC Alba documentary on the great Gordon Duncan's piping - 'Just for Gordon' (2012?) ...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-UCdslwnk8. My adviser at the University of Edinburgh from 2003-2004, Gary West (who produces the weekly BBC Pipeline show - http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0079g6v), features prominently here since they were in the 1970's pipe band Vale of Atholl together, in which Gordon and his brother PM Ian significantly developed creatively and piping-wise. I've also added this to World University and School's Great Highland Bagpipe wiki page - http://worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/Great_Highland_Bagpipe#World_University_and_School_Links

Regards, 
Scott



Great, Lore,

Thanks for your email just now, and see you online soon. 

Let's add tunes gradually to this fuller blog post plan of mine from last September ... http://scott-macleod.blogspot.com/2013/09/red-grouse-tunes-ideas-and-plans-for.html ... (than my previous blog links) ... 

so I can further learn to play piping music this way ... "Lorne MacDougall at the Young Trad Musician of the Year Finals 2009" - 

and perhaps so I can also focus on recording inspiring playing, as well (like your playing :). 

See you soon :)



Hi Lore,

Here's the recording of mine I'd like to build on toward inspiring recordings ...

Miss Elspeth Campbell ... 

And here's my youtube channel with this and other piping recordings ... https://www.youtube.com/user/sgkmacleod 

As a teacher, what might you suggest keeping this great recording of yours in mind - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ib5i_L1U3Sc  ? Play faster? Different tunes? (I like the hills in the background). 

Regards, 
Scott


*

Hi Lorne, 

Nice to visit your D's home virtually :)

Thanks for a good lesson today and especially your feedback. Will try to record 'Carradale Bay' inspiringly, without the fingering blips, for learning purposes (both for playing and recording) for next week (and maybe with 'Miss Elspeth Campbell,' as well). 

inspiration ... would love to start online bagpiping ceilidhs and kinds of open mics in Google + group video Hangouts (further the open online music playing space idea I've been developing) .. perhaps at the same time as our lesson, in addition to our lessons ... Would you come ? (You'd be the big name that might draw people - please invite friends) ... they would be on a different evening (Tuesday or Thursday?), and around 7pm GMT for an hour or so, - to make piping social, learn about and develop a piping culture in G+ Hangouts, plus much more? What are most productive social piping learning experiences you've had/created ... in pubs, for example, or jam sessions some how?

further inspiration, thanks to you ... am eager to transpose back and forth from playing beginning keyboard (mostly bass lines this past fall, but adding the right hand now) on Monday evenings with Scottish Country Dance music (so many parallels) to pipes, - per your playing keyboard today.


(For further learning about inspiring recordings' reasons, 

I also find particularly Stuart Liddell's online piping (both family favorites / beginning and complicated tunes) particularly inspiring ... such as 

Piping Live (this whole concert - parts 1-8)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZuvMePr82y8

15 Solo Stuart Liddell Inverary Pipe Band 2013 Royal Concert Hall

but all of his Youtubes, (in addition to yours - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ib5i_L1U3Sc ) ... :)


Thanks again for the lessons and the focusing ... (here's my tune list I'd like to develop toward professional piping, again - http://scott-macleod.blogspot.com/2013/09/red-grouse-tunes-ideas-and-plans-for.html - and toward inspiring recordings and playing :)

See you next Wednesday, and thanks :)


*

Hi Lore, 

Just posted about your piping and lessons here - https://plus.google.com/u/0/112822712931339453961/posts - on my main, bagpiping G + profile (sgkmacleod@gmail.com) ... Do you have a free, G+ Profile? (I haven't been able to find one for you, and I've looked a few times, and they're very easy to begin ... all you need is to build from a free gmail account) ... I find G+ more helpful than most other social networking sites, information technologically, especially  and its community is growing big ...
Cheers, 



Hi Lore, 

A few, further, musical thoughts ... in words and tones ... 

Here's a 'Carradale Bay' recording from today ... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wwoso4Q-MwY  (http://www.youtube.com/user/sgkmacleod) ... after a few less good recordings 2 hours ago ... getting back into piping after bronchitis ... recording changes a learning dynamic, and I learn from it performance-wise ... daily playing again will improve fingering precision.  

Do you know the lovely, accordion player Lana Elaine Thomson in Glasgow, who studies at the Royal Conservatoire there - http://www.youtube.com/user/fantinigirl92 and http://gria.co.uk/lana/ 

I particularly enjoy this "Callinish" - 

Might she be a musical colleague with whom to jam ? ... and even in a Google + Hangout, as well ? :)

Cheers, 
Scott













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Wednesday, January 29, 2014

Maine Atlantic Salmon: Verified, Signature and Proctored courses, MIT OCW, edX, Coursera and WUaS, Range of $30-$100 per course for verified certificate, WUaS will probably engage something like these verification systems for matriculated students, especially with our focus on students in the developing world, and plans to offer FREE (since C.C.), MIT-centric, WUaS university degrees



Dear Universitians,

In the recent, MIT OCW, January 2014, newsletter emailing (see - http://ocw.mit.edu/about/newsletter/ and http://ocw.mit.edu/subscribe/), with its listing of new and updated MIT OCW courses, MIT OCW shared an example of open courses with verification of identity, here, in edX - https://www.edx.org/course-list/mitx/id-verified/allcourses - and here - https://www.edx.org/verified-certificate - where the identity of the student is verified to assure that they've been doing the course work and the learning, and not someone else.

Courses with verified certificates will cost something like $100 per course through edX.


And here Yale Professor of Music and co-chair of Yale Online Education Committee - said that the cost of a Coursera course (at the 132 minute mark), with verification, would be between $40 and $75, with scholarships ...



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X98dmMy0gbY

See, too -

How much does Signature Track cost?
"The price of taking a Signature Track course depends on the course, and is displayed on your course’s Signature Track sign-up page. The cost is typically between $30-90 USD"
http://help.coursera.org/customer/portal/articles/936607-how-much-does-signature-track-cost-

"Coursera will offer proctored exams at the end of these courses through ProctorU, an online proctoring service that connects proctors and students via webcam. The service will cost $60–$90."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coursera


World University and School will probably engage something like these verification systems for matriculated students, especially with our focus on students in the developing world, and plans to offer FREE (since C.C.), MIT-centric, WUaS (where students will take 32 courses for an undergraduate degree, for example), university degrees - with graduate student instructors potentially heading to become Professors (and who may do proctoring in the process, as well).

Best,
Scott





























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Monday, January 27, 2014

Sedge Wren: World University and School is open and receiving applications for this autumn 2014, Students will be taking 32 of these courses over 4 years - http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/audio-video-courses/ - for free (C.C.) and MIT-centric, online, accrediting, WUaS, undergraduate degrees, 'The College at World University and School' and 'Admissions at WUaS," This is great, fascinating and exciting, and WUaS has gotten no press about this


World University and School is open and receiving applications for this autumn 2014.


Students will be taking 32 of these courses over 4 years - http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/audio-video-courses/ - for free (C.C.) and MIT-centric, online, accrediting, WUaS, undergraduate degrees, in English, (then in other languages - http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/translated-courses/). 

The College at World University and School - 

This is great, fascinating and exciting, and WUaS has gotten no press about this. 

Classes will initially meet in Google + Hangouts, and registration will occur via Google Docs ... 

email: worlduniversityandschool@gmail.com. 

Here's information about how to apply ...   

Admissions at World University and School - 


*

I've posted this at WUaS's blog, as well, here ... 
http://worlduniversityandschool.blogspot.com/2014/01/receiving-applications-at-wuas-for-this.html.























...

Sunday, January 26, 2014

Nilgiri langurs: Further with loving bliss, and particularly generating this neurophysiology, both with awareness (consciousness) and for various qualities of this brain and body, so bodymind, chemistry ... As a question of agency (causal intention), how could I, or you, do this explicitly, and whenever, and especially to generate it? Music seems to be a most fruitful approach ... and for me, this would be with bagpiping, keyboard (as well as singing)


... further with loving bliss, and particularly generating this neurophysiology, both with awareness (consciousness), and for various qualities of this brain and body, - so bodymind chemistry, generated subjectively ...

As a question of agency (i.e. causal intention), how could I, or you, do this explicitly, and whenever, and in a variety of qualities, - and especially to generate it?

Music seems to be a most fruitful approach ... and for me, this would be with bagpiping, keyboard in a Scottish Country Dance band, or via lead, keyboard improvisation (as well as singing) in a rock or blues' dance band ...

I come back to my own experiences of generating loving bliss neurophysiology listening to the Grateful Dead as well as dancing Scottish Country Dance ... as some further examples with which to focus this learning process.

There's a kind of 'oneness' which occurs, - with rhythm and melody and tones - which can be an integral aspect of such loving bliss experiences, neurally.


*

Skill, and precision, in musicianship, and improvising, may also be part of these processes ...


*

How to learn from Jerry Garcia and the Grateful Dead, for example, or from Mozart, or from Ravi Shankar and raga?


*

Join or create a great band and bliss each other with music, and let our bodyminds sing, - or radiate, - forth (I'm thinking of the Grateful Dead when the music is happening between them, and for Deadheads)  ....


Grateful Dead- Going Down the Road- alpine valley '89

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iCAMsqx3q3M


Grateful Dead - China Cat Sunflower & I Know You Rider Pt 2

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYjMCSlA6AU
Grateful Dead. 1989. Grateful Dead - China Cat Sunflower and I Know You Rider Pt 2. (Youtube.com). East Troy, WI: Alpine Valley Music Theater.


*

Heading to play and practice the keyboard and the chanter (and sing) ... seems like practicing and playing music, so practicing loving bliss generation can help ... (play with the Grateful Dead on Youtube from home, for learning's sake ... and find local musicians)


*

Grateful Dead
http://worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/Grateful_Dead

Links at WUaS Grateful Dead wiki page
http://worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/Grateful_Dead#World_University_and_School_Links


Loving Bliss (eliciting this neurophysiology)
http://worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/Loving_Bliss_(eliciting_this_neurophysiology)

See many other subjects named above at WUaS too.













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Saturday, January 25, 2014

Gray Langurs: Friends in Jharkhand, India, Re: WUaS, thanks, and perhaps we could explore an experimental Google + Hangout about WUaS for spreading the word at some point


Hi Aditi, Gautam, and Priti!

I'm just burrowing out from re-entry into California, having returned last Saturday, January 18. Very nice to have gotten your messages, and sorry, too, for my tardy reply. It was fun to meet and celebrate the sunset at Magnolia Point with you, as well as meet to celebrate the sunrise in Neterhat at Hotel Prabhat Vihar, in Jharkhand. Who would have thought that so many would get up for a 'roof party' at sunrise? :)

Re: World University and School, thanks, and perhaps we could explore an experimental Google + Hangout about WUaS for spreading the word at some point - 8pm here is 8:30am in India, I think. And then we could save it to one of our Youtube channels, - and partly for learning about these information technologies, too. What might be a good day of the week for us to try this for you?

WUaS is significantly looking for best and high-achieving high school students (25-100 … 1000?) from India to matriculate online for free and MIT OCW-centric (taking 32 of these courses over 4 years - http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/audio-video-courses/) undergraduate degrees. In spreading the word, do you think you could please help find 25-100 or even 1000 graduating high school students in India who might be interested in the far-reaching online educational opportunity? (e.g. Neterhat Regional School) This is an historic opportunity, and WUaS plans to become a significant, academic, job producer in India, with time (e.g. Google has two offices in India, with about 500 people under one roof in its Dehli office). An article in the Hindustan Times, and/or a main Jharkhand newspaper this spring?

So glad Lodh Falls was enjoyable ... I found it beautiful and interesting to glean how people in India might visit such natural wonders in comparison with people in America, for example ... so many similarities, but I saw more natural plant items at picnics, is one difference, based on about a 30 minute visit. I like the unfolding exploring in such adventures as well :) Amit gave me the book ... please thank him again.

Here's the web link to my blog entry with you in it ...
http://scott-macleod.blogspot.com/2014/01/wallago-attu-jharkhand-new-state-in.html

And here's the web link to my blog entries vis-a-vis traveling in India ...
http://scott-macleod.blogspot.com/search/label/India

Please let me know when your plans gel for a trip to California, and perhaps we can visit Yosemite Falls together :)

Would love to see further photos, and I'll get to my photos (and will post some to my various G+ Profile pages, - http://  and http://scottmacleod.com, too, with time), as well, at some point (but please remember, Aditi, you're a professional photographer :)

Warm greetings,
Scott













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Friday, January 24, 2014

Indian elephants: India, and WUaS collaborations with you, Google India, Nazareth Academy near Bhodgaya, Bihar, India ... WUaS's 'You at World University' page



Hi Saurav, Rinku and Pallav,

Greetings from the San Francisco Bay Area, after much fascinating travel in India. I got back to America on Saturday, 18 January, and am glad to be able to email again with you from here freely. It's great to have met all of you in one way or another on the train leaving Kolkata (Calcutta) in Bengal, to Gaya in the state of Bihar.

In terms of collaborating with you, Google India (what did your supervisor say, and do you have 20% Google time, Saurav?) and rolling out WUaS in India this autumn 2014, what WUaS is significantly looking for are best and high-achieving high school students (25-100) from India to matriculate online for free and MIT OCW-centric (taking 32 of these courses over 4 years - http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/audio-video-courses/) undergraduate degrees.

Rinku, do you think you could help find 25-100 or even 1000 graduating high school students at Nazareth Academy in Gaya, Bihar, India, (http://wikimapia.org/207249/Nazareth-Academy-Gaya ... http://nazarethgaya.com/ ... is there a G+ page for Nazareth Academy, Saurav?) who might be interested in the far-reaching online educational opportunity?

Saurav, what would be involved from Google India's perspective is organizing online student registration, transcripts, email lists, Google + Hangouts as classrooms, plus related aspects in Google Docs +.

This is a great opportunity for Google India, too. Looking forward to further communication with you.

Basically, what WUaS would be looking for in a collaboration with you and Google India would be developing out the main, all-languages (7,105) 'You at World University' page ...  http://worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/You_at_World_University (even with a Music School and real, real time music-making planned, e.g. in Google + Hangouts).

I also wonder about contacting the Chief Architect of Google Plus, Y.Z., who seems very sympatico, knowledgable and skilled about the above, and which in many ways he/they has/have already made a version of, quite remarkably, in Google +.

Best,
Scott






















...

Thursday, January 23, 2014

Canada lynx: Concerning ... "Why You’ll Be Paying Your Student Loans Forever," HarvardX / MITx study of online learning, WUaS plans also to study how students and others learn, and multi-lingually, MIT OpenCourseWare-centric WUaS's online, free, Creative Commons' university degrees, with first, undergraduate, class in English planned for this autumn, Admissions at WUaS



Concerning ... "Why You’ll Be Paying Your Student Loans Forever" - http://www.buzzfeed.com/doree/heres-why-youll-be-paying-your-student-loans-forever … and … "Harvard and MIT release working papers on open online learning" - http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2014/01/harvard-and-mit-release-working-papers-on-open-online-learning/ ...


and … "MIT and Harvard release working papers on open online courses" - http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2014/mit-and-harvard-release-working-papers-on-open-online-courses-0121.html


***

MIT OpenCourseWare-centric World University and School's online, free, Creative Commons' university degrees, with first, undergraduate, class in English planned for this autumn - http://worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/Admissions_at_World_University_and_School - plans also to study how students and others learn, and multi-lingually.

(In addition to the above HarvardX study, here's another interesting, recent,, 1/21/14 Harvard, data-focused example of studying Wikipedians -  http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/events/luncheon/2014/01/hargittai-shaw).

WUaS plans to contribute to such studies inter-lingually.

(WUaS is planned for all 7,105 language; Wikipedia is in 287 languages, by way of comparison, and WUaS is like Wikipedia with MIT OCW).

Here's the open-ended (for academic and 'creative'), main, wiki, Subjects' page at WUaS - http://worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/Subjects - for open, wiki teaching and learning.

In addition to offering a MIT OCW-centric alternative, free degree opportunity, vis-a-vis the student debt problem in many countries, WUaS would like to generate a flourishing, multilingual, knowledge-generative conversation, and become the Harvard / MIT of the internet and in all languages and countries.




























...


Wednesday, January 22, 2014

Ashy Prinia: India, World University and School Slideshow there to Society of Auditors, One puzzle of WUaS is how to let people know about WUaS's planned, free - and MIT OCW-centric - degrees' possibilities, and get their kids to apply, as WUaS accredits, - as well as how to begin to grow as an university


Hi Jo,

     So nice to get your email.

     Back now in the SF Bay Area (as of Saturday 1/18), I'll post some further photos to this G+ Profile page - https://plus.google.com/u/0/112822712931339453961/posts - including some of Pongol festival flowers and chalk drawings, which I'm pretty sure I took; they're already only 3 photos from India there, and I took a lot of photos. :)

     India is mind-expanding for me in many ways - especially scale-wise, as well as in its religiosity - and very glad to have given a WUaS presentation there:
http://www.slideshare.net/WorldUniversity/introducing-world-university-school-chennai-india-presentation-january-2014 - at the Society of Auditors in Chennai, of all places, thanks to a friend from India. Very glad, too, to have traveled in India (but came home with bad bronchitis, possibly partly due to bad air pollution there).

     And one puzzle of World University and School is how to let people know about WUaS's planned, free - and MIT OCW-centric - degrees' possibilities, and get their kids to apply, as WUaS accredits, - as well as how to begin to grow as an university. We'd like to become the MIT / Harvard of the Internet and in all languages (7,105 with smaller languages as wiki schools; Wikipedia is in 287 languages, by way of comparison, and we all wrote it), - and MIT OCW and the Internet are great beginnings. It's exciting to develop WUaS, but we haven't begun to build on the benefits of a team, or a growing organization, for example, which can feel discouraging at times.

     Hi to All,

L,
Scott

















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Tuesday, January 21, 2014

Sebastopol meadowfoam: Great Harvard talk, and engagement with the data, about ... 'Internet Skills and Wikipedia's Gender Inequality' with Eszter Hargittai and Aaron Shaw, Wonder how World University and School, like Wikipedia with MIT OCW with free degrees planned, might engage their research, as we begin to matriculate students first in English and then in larger languages ... http://worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/Admissions_at_World_University_and_School ... and with WUaS plans to study users and students partly in exchange for free, MIT OCW-centric degrees, I wonder if they look at these questions inter-lingually ... http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/translated-courses


Great Harvard talk, and engagement with the data, about ...

'Internet Skills and Wikipedia's Gender Inequality'

with Eszter Hargittai and Aaron Shaw, Northwestern University

http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/events/luncheon/2014/01/hargittai-shaw

(and which will be archived ...

and was also accessible live here today at 9:30am, Tuesday - http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/wg_home/webcast)


*

From the Colloquy chat forum (my comments were saved - great)


Curious that http://www.crookedtimber.org/ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crooked_Timber) - a group blog to which Eszter has been a contributor since 2003 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eszter_Hargittai) - isn't accessible on the web at present ...

[10:05am]
Wonder how World University and School, like Wikipedia with MIT OCW with free degrees planned, might engage their research, as we begin to matriculate students first in English and then in larger languages ... http://worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/Admissions_at_World_University_and_School ... and with WUaS plans to study users and students partly in exchange for free, MIT OCW-centric degrees.

[10:07am]

[10:09am]

I wonder if they look at these questions inter-lingually ... http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/translated-courses ...


*

(See, too - http://jpalfrey.andover.edu/2007/10/30/ezster-hargittai-on-digital-natives/)









...


Wednesday, January 15, 2014

White-throated Laughingthrush: Konark Temple (an UNESCO WHS), People in India are 'wired' differently than in the US, and India is an ancient song ... culturally, culturally, culturally


Hi M,

About to get on the overnight train for Chennai ... train stations are interesting here in India.

Have unlocked my smartphone (with a little micro-sim card acquired in India which I put into it, temporarily replacing the micro-sim chip I use in the US, having got an unlock code in the US before I left), and can now get emails and texts more readily in these last 4 days or so than before, which is very cool in a way.

Just took an Indian public bus - quite a squished, let's see how many people we can fit in, experience - out to the Konark museum, after seeing the stellar Konark Temple (an UNESCO WHS) in Konark 2 days ago.

Have you seen Konark?

Talking about WUaS to the Society of Auditors in Chennai thanks to P soon and preparing an 8-10 minute slide presentation for this.

People in India are 'wired' differently than in the US, and India is an ancient song ... culturally, culturally, culturally (writes this anthropologist). ... India culturally is also kind of trippy, and I'm thinking through how and why as I travel ... has to do partly with India's religiosity (which supports almost dreamlike imaginative symbolizing), related narratives (e.g. Krishna, Mahabarata, Ramanyana) with its art (e.g. Krishna's blue face, and so much) and temples (e.g. colorful, almost psychedelic) as well as what they collectively symbolize, and with so many people sharing this vision, or such visions :)

L,
Scott




















Some videos and photos and sounds - 

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