Want to learn basic computer programming skills specifically tailored for academia?
Please consider a FREE two-day workshop on either on Python or on R.
Python is a programming language that is simple, easy to learn for beginners and experienced programmers, and emphasizes readability. At the same time, it comes with lots of modules and packages to add to your programs when you need more sophistication. Whether you need to perform data analysis, graphing, or develop a network application, or just want to have a nice calculator that remembers all your formulas and constants, Python can do it with elegance. https://www.python.org/about/
R (RStudio) is a language and environment for statistical computing and graphics. R provides a wide variety of statistical and graphical techniques. R can produce well-designed publication-quality plots, including mathematical symbols and formulae. https://www.r-project.org/about.html
Both software packages are free and operate on MS Windows, MAC/Apple and GNU/Linux OS.
Besides seamless installation on your personal computer, you can access both software in SCSU computer labs or via SCSU AppsAnywhere.
In an effort to accommodate as many faculty as possible, please indicate whether you want Python or R and check your availability using these Doodle polls:
says David Greenfield, a psychologist and assistant clinical professor of psychiatry at the University of Connecticut:When we hear a ding or little ditty alerting us to a new text, email or Facebook post, cells in our brains likely release dopamine — one of the chemical transmitters in the brain’s reward circuitry. That dopamine makes us feel pleasure
“It’s a spectrum disorder,” says Dr. Anna Lembke, a psychiatrist at Stanford University, who studies addiction. “There are mild, moderate and extreme forms.” And for many people, there’s no problem at all.
Signs you might be experiencing problematic use, Lembke says, include these:
Interacting with the device keeps you up late or otherwise interferes with your sleep.
It reduces the time you have to be with friends or family.
It interferes with your ability to finish work or homework.
It causes you to be rude, even subconsciously. “For instance,” Lembke asks, “are you in the middle of having a conversation with someone and just dropping down and scrolling through your phone?” That’s a bad sign.
It’s squelching your creativity. “I think that’s really what people don’t realize with their smartphone usage,” Lembke says. “It can really deprive you of a kind of seamless flow of creative thought that generates from your own brain.”
Consider a digital detox one day a week
Tiffany Shlain, a San Francisco Bay Area filmmaker, and her family power down all their devices every Friday evening, for a 24-hour period.
“It’s something we look forward to each week,” Shlain says. She and her husband, Ken Goldberg, a professor in the field of robotics at the University of California, Berkeley, are very tech savvy.
A recent study of high school students, published in the journal Emotion, found that too much time spent on digital devices is linked to lower self-esteem and a decrease in well-being.
n a 2016 survey of higher education institutions (study published by UPCEA and Pearson), one in five institutions now offer the opportunity to earn verified digital badges.
The way we learn is continuously evolving. In the coming years we should expect to see organizations of all kinds start experimenting with the increasing number of badge platforms out there. While Mozilla Open Badges seems to be leading the way in the development of badging, other networks including Badge Alliance, Credly and Digital Me are growing their networks as they launch their own competing platforms. Students and professionals use social networks and other digital platforms daily, and with that comes a different way to showcase professional skills.
The UN’s children’s agency, Unicef, has launched a futuristic pilot project to utilise the cryptocurrency Ethereum to raise money for Syrian children.
the “blockchain” technology associated with the cryptocurrency – the world’s second largest after the controversial Bitcoin – to revolutionise not only how aid organisations raise money but also to increase transparency in their financial transactions.
Blockchain – which emerged as one of the underpinnings of Bitcoin – is a shared record of transactions maintained by a network of computers. It has become a key technology because of its ability to record and keep track of assets or transactions with no need for middlemen.
The World Food Programme (WFP) has used Ethereum to deliver $1.4m in food vouchers, via the use of iris recognition scanners in camp supermarkets, to around 10,000 Syrian refugees in Jordan,
Moscow appears to have moved quickly into the market of cryptocurrencies and cryptography. Gref earlier warned that companies including Blockchain and Bitcoin should not be banned or hindered in their operations.
Russia’s Finance Ministry legalised cryptocurrency trading on January 25 with the Digital Assets Regulation Bill, despite vocal objections from the country’s Central Bank. The bill defined cryptocurrencies and tokens as digital financial assets that are not legal tender in Russia. The Central Bank, however, argued that digital currency trading rules should only be applied to tokens that would attract financial investments.
It’s working, generally, but it does require a good bit of config tweaking to get it to accurately count. It also needs (I’ve discovered) a certain amount of distance between the door and the camera. We have very low ceilings at our doorways and a single person can span the entire frame which appears to confuse the software. All that being said, it’s very much worth looking into.
Analytics out of the box aren’t great. The only built in report is only the current day’s numbers, but it’s pretty easy to export data. We have Libinsight from Springshare and I’m working on pumping that data into their system. It is tricky because the system basically records two things: a timestamp, and a positive or negative integer depending on whether or not the traffic was going in or out. By default, no generic analytics system seems to understand that well enough to display it the way I’d like, so I may have to create some custom reports using d3.js or similar.
I’m using the Pi 2 and standard camera module from Adafruit. I’d be happy to answer questions.
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Mark Sandford Systems Librarian Assistant Professor in the Libraries Colgate University Libraries
“They do plan,” said a senior Obama-administration official. “They’re not stupid at all. But the idea that they have this all perfectly planned and that Putin is an amazing chess player—that’s not quite it. He knows where he wants to end up, he plans the first few moves, and then he figures out the rest later. People ask if he plays chess or checkers. It’s neither: He plays blackjack. He has a higher acceptance of risk. Think about it. The election interference—that was pretty risky, what he did. If Hillary Clinton had won, there would’ve been hell to pay.”
Even the manner of the Russian attack was risky. The fact that the Russians didn’t really bother hiding their fingerprints is a testament to the change in Russia’s intent toward the U.S., Robert Hannigan, a former head of the Government Communications Headquarters, the British analogue to the National Security Agency, said at the Aspen Forum. “The brazen recklessness of it … the fact that they don’t seem to care that it’s attributed to them very publicly, is the biggest change.”
Effective communication is one critical characteristics of effective and successful school principal. Research on effective schools and instructional leadership emphasizes the impact of principal leadership on creating safe and secure learning environment and positive nurturing school climate (Halawah, 2005, p. 334)
Halawah, I. (2005). The Relationship between Effective Communication of High School Principal and School Climate. Education, 126(2), 334-345.
Selection of school principals in Hong Kong. The findings confirm a four-factor set of expectations sought from applicants; these are Generic Managerial Skills; Communication and Presentation Skills; Knowledge and Experience; and Religious Value Orientation.
Kwan, P. (2012). Assessing school principal candidates: perspectives of the hiring superintendents. International Journal Of Leadership In Education, 15(3), 331-349. doi:10.1080/13603124.2011.617838
Yee, D. L. (2000). Images of school principals’ information and communications technology leadership. Journal of Information Technology for Teacher Education, 9(3), 287–302. https://doi.org/10.1080/14759390000200097
Catano, N., & Stronge, J. H. (2007). What do we expect of school principals? Congruence between principal evaluation and performance standards. International Journal of Leadership in Education, 10(4), 379–399. https://doi.org/10.1080/13603120701381782
Communication can consist of two large areas:
broadcasting information: PR, promotions, notifications etc.
two-way communication: collecting feedback, “office hours” type of communication, backchanneling, etc.
Further communication initiated by/from principals can have different audiences
Reyes, P., & Hoyle, D. (1992). Teachers’ Satisfaction With Principals’ Communication. The Journal of Educational Research, 85(3), 163–168. https://doi.org/10.1080/00220671.1992.9944433
parents: involvement, feeling of empowerment, support, volunteering
students
board members
community
Epstein, J. L. (1995). School/family/community partnerships – ProQuest. Phi Delta Kappan, 76(9), 701.
Others
Communication and Visualization
The ever-growing necessity to be able to communicate data to different audiences in digestible format.
considering the information discussed in class, split in groups of 4 and develop your institution strategy for effective and modern communication across and out of your school.
Guardtime – This company is creating “keyless” signature systems using blockchain which is currently used to secure the health records of one million Estonian citizens.
REMME is a decentralized authentication system which aims to replace logins and passwords with SSL certificates stored on a blockchain.
Healthcare
Gem – This startup is working with the Centre for Disease Control to put disease outbreak data onto a blockchain which it says will increase the effectiveness of disaster relief and response.
SimplyVital Health – Has two health-related blockchain products in development, ConnectingCare which tracks the progress of patients after they leave the hospital, and Health Nexus, which aims to provide decentralized blockchain patient records.
MedRec – An MIT project involving blockchain electronic medical records designed to manage authentication, confidentiality and data sharing.
Financial services
ABRA – A cryptocurrency wallet which uses the Bitcoin blockchain to hold and track balances stored in different currencies.
Bank Hapoalim – A collaboration between the Israeli bank and Microsoft to create a blockchain system for managing bank guarantees.
Barclays – Barclays has launched a number of blockchain initiatives involving tracking financial transactions, compliance and combating fraud. It states that “Our belief …is that blockchain is a fundamental part of the new operating system for the planet.”
Maersk – The shipping and transport consortium has unveiled plans for a blockchain solution for streamlining marine insurance.
Aeternity – Allows the creation of smart contracts which become active when network consensus agrees that conditions have been met – allowing for automated payments to be made when parties agree that conditions have been met, for example.
Augur – Allows the creation of blockchain-based predictions markets for the trading of derivatives and other financial instruments in a decentralized ecosystem.
Manufacturing and industrial
Provenance – This project aims to provide a blockchain-based provenance record of transparency within supply chains.
Jiocoin – India’s biggest conglomerate, Reliance Industries, has said that it is developing a blockchain-based supply chain logistics platform along with its own cryptocurrency, Jiocoin.
Hijro – Previously known as Fluent, aims to create a blockchain framework for collaborating on prototyping and proof-of-concept.
SKUChain – Another blockchain system for allowing tracking and tracing of goods as they pass through a supply chain.
Blockverify – A blockchain platform which focuses on anti-counterfeit measures, with initial use cases in the diamond, pharmaceuticals and luxury goods markets.
Transactivgrid – A business-led community project based in Brooklyn allowing members to locally produce and cell energy, with the goal of reducing costs involved in energy distribution.
STORJ.io – Distributed and encrypted cloud storage, which allows users to share unused hard drive space.
Government
Dubai – Dubai has set sights on becoming the world’s first blockchain-powered state. In 2016 representatives of 30 government departments formed a committee dedicated to investigating opportunities across health records, shipping, business registration and preventing the spread of conflict diamonds.
Estonia – The Estonian government has partnered with Ericsson on an initiative involving creating a new data center to move public records onto the blockchain. 20
South Korea – Samsung is creating blockchain solutions for the South Korean government which will be put to use in public safety and transport applications.
Govcoin – The UK Department of Work and Pensions is investigating using blockchain technology to record and administer benefit payments.
Democracy.earth – This is an open-source project aiming to enable the creation of democratically structured organizations, and potentially even states or nations, using blockchain tools.
Followmyvote.com – Allows the creation of secure, transparent voting systems, reducing opportunities for voter fraud and increasing turnout through improved accessibility to democracy.
Charity
Bitgive – This service aims to provide greater transparency to charity donations and clearer links between giving and project outcomes. It is working with established charities including Save The Children, The Water Project and Medic Mobile.
Retail
OpenBazaar – OpenBazaar is an attempt to build a decentralized market where goods and services can be traded with no middle-man.
Loyyal – This is a blockchain-based universal loyalty framework, which aims to allow consumers to combine and trade loyalty rewards in new ways, and retailers to offer more sophisticated loyalty packages.
Blockpoint.io – Allows retailers to build payment systems around blockchain currencies such as Bitcoin, as well as blockchain derived gift cards and loyalty schemes.
Real Estate
Ubiquity – This startup is creating a blockchain-driven system for tracking the complicated legal process which creates friction and expense in real estate transfer.
Transport and Tourism
IBM Blockchain Solutions – IBM has said it will go public with a number of non-finance related blockchain initiatives with global partners in 2018. This video envisages how efficiencies could be driven in the vehicle leasing industry.
Arcade City – An application which aims to beat Uber at their own game by moving ride sharing and car hiring onto the blockchain.
La’Zooz – A community-owned platform for synchronizing empty seats with passengers in need of a lift in real-time.
Webjet – The online travel portal is developing a blockchain solution to allow stock of empty hotel rooms to be efficiently tracked and traded, with payment fairly routed to the network of middle-men sites involved in filling last-minute vacancies.
Media
Kodak – Kodak recently sent its stock soaring after announcing that it is developing a blockchain system for tracking intellectual property rights and payments to photographers.
Ujomusic – Founded by singer-songwriter Imogen Heap to record and track royalties for musicians, as well as allowing them to create a record of ownership of their work.
It is exciting to see all these developments. I am sure not all of these will make it into successful long-term ventures but if they indicate one thing, then it is the vast potential the blockchain technology is offering.
ALLISON AUBREY