Cuthbert Calculus - Slashdot User

Snakes on The Net Fail to Put Butts in the Seats 580

Posted by Zonk on Tuesday August 22, 2006 @04:33PM from the snacks-on-the-brain dept.

Lev13than writes "An article in The Globe & Mail discusses the disappointing performance of Snakes on a Plane. Despite extensive Internet hype and unprecedented audience involvement in the movie's development, it barely slithered into first place with a meager $13.8M weekend box office. 'The Internet stuff was just fun that people were having with it, but I don't think that necessarily meant that those people wanted to see the movie... those who had made that decision based their decision more on the traditional marketing than on all this Internet buzz.' Was all of the hype about blogger power just that — hype?"

Comment Our experience at a small art college (Score 1) 515

by Cuthbert Calculus on Wednesday February 22, 2006 @10:19AM (#14776128) Attached to: Switching a College from Desktops to Laptops?

I teach in the art program at a small, private college, and we made the transition for a number of our art programs a couple years ago. Here are some of the issues we dealt with:

1. We kept our traditional lab and use it for the first two years, then require laptops for students entering their junior year. This allows us (and the students) to focus on the concepts at the beginning, then the various technological issues once they're more ready for them.

2. Although I expected it, we saw very little reluctance to the laptop requirement. On the contrary, students seem to really like it, and it's been something of a selling point for our program.

3. While we're Mac-based, we allow students to purchase Windows laptops provided they accept all responsibility for configuration issues. So far, we've only had a couple students go the Windows route, and it seems to have worked out OK.

4. Good handouts are essential, unless you want to spend all your time answering the same questions over and over and over. (How do I connect my laptop to the printer? How do I make a backup? Etc.)

5. The biggest problem has been damaged laptops, where students have to send them in for repair. (ie. spilling beer on the keyboard) How do students complete their coursework while they wait? It's tempting to simply call it their problem, but practically, this doesn't really work. Whenever possible, we try to maintain at least one lab machine with all the equivalent software they can use in an emergency.

6. Software updates can be a problem, too. Often, a company (Macromedia does this a lot) will update their software mid-year, and some students will rush out to purchase it. This can get the class out of sync. Our policy is to pick a version we will teach for the year and stick to it.

7. Fostering a sense of community has been difficult. Students tend to finish class, pack up their laptops, and head out the door. Right now we're in the process of re-designing a number of our work spaces to make them more laptop-friendly, in the hopes of encouraging more collaborative work.

So, overall it's been a good thing. But we're still in transition.

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