On online teaching amd learning….

by Tina Hovekamp, Library

The online teaching environment is experiencing a tremendous growth spurt, just like my oldest teen son!  Rapid increase in online enrollment is clear even in our own college which currently offers more than 130 sections of online courses for the 2009-10 academic year. This is a 26% increase over the number of COCC online offerings in the previous year and a 130% increase of total online COCC offerings just a few years ago, in 2006-07. Quite impressive, isn’t it?

But COCC is only following the national trends.  According to a recent article in Campus Technology, data gathered by The Ambient Insight research firm indicates that “[n]early 12 million post-secondary students in the United States take some or all of their classes online right now. But this number will skyrocket to more than 22 million in the next five years …”  Moreover, according to this study’s forecast, by 2014 there will be 5.14 million students nationwide who will take all of their classes in a real classroom compared to 18.65 million who will take at least one of their courses online.

One of the explanations for such a rate of growth is the economic recession we are experiencing which has increased not only overall enrollments in schools of higher education (including COCC) but also the demand for more online instruction for people who wish to reenter the workforce but need to update their skills in a more flexible learning environment. From the schools’  perspective, online education can also help with the pressures of shrinking budgets and high teaching demands in a relatively inexpensive way. According to the most recent Sloan Survey of Online Learning report, “50 percent of institutions with online education programs have seen their institutional budgets decrease, compared to 25 percent that have seen their budgets increase.” 

And who says the swine flu scare this year did not also affect our modes of teaching? A U.S. News & World Report article, “Study: Online Education Continues Its Meteoric Growth,” reports that fears of a possible H1N1 outbreak forced many colleges to develop contingency plans substituting online courses for regular classes. Basically, unless schools are dealing with a web virus, “When you have an online plan in place, classes go on as usual.” 

But beyond national and local trends, there is also this debate in everybody’s mind on overall quality: is online instruction as effective as campus instruction providing similar quality learning experiences to the students?  In 2009, the US Deprtment of Education released a report with a focus on the effectiveness of online education.  Here are three of the findings that caught my attention:

• Students who took all or part of their class online performed better, on average, than those taking the same course through traditional face-to-face instruction.
• Instruction combining online and face-to-face elements had a larger advantage relative to purely face-to-face instruction than did purely online instruction.
• Studies in which learners in the online condition spent more time on task than students in the face-to-face condition found a greater benefit for online learning.

The report cautions that despite what appears to be strong support for online learning, there is no evidence that online learning is superior to classroom learning.  However, the authors of the study take the extra step to note that online learning may give students the advantage of an “expansion of learning time” that face-to-face instruction does not allow as readily within traditional class time limits.

In his commentary of this latest government report Dr. Pyke, Center for Teaching & Learning, UNC Charlotte, states, “It’s not the medium that makes online learning better but the thoughtful, purposeful, and intentional instructional design decisions used to create the courses (a combination of time spent, curriculum, and pedagogy, according to the report)”

Well, that’s an argument hard to disagree with. However, considering the importance and pressure of market trends for more online instruction, differences in learning in the online versus face-to-face environment will probably continue to be an area of debate as well as study.

If you are an instructor of online courses or a student who has taken online courses, what do you think about your experience? (use the “comment” link below to add your thoughts)?

Some of the Neatest Statistics You’ve Never Seen

By Sean Rule, Math

Figure 1: from Michael Blastland’s “Go Figure” column, March 11, 2009

Before you read any further, please take a look at the figure above for a few moments.  Pretty, isn’t it?  Now look deeper…what’s it showing you?  (resist the urge to click on the hyperlink).  For you youngsters out there who don’t remember the blockbuster 1997 movie, two hints: 1) big boat; 2) iceberg. 

What strikes me about this graph is not just its beauty, although that sure is a large part of what made me say, “Wow!” when I first saw it.  No, combined with its beauty is its function.  It represents data in a non – traditional way.  To contrast, here’s how some similar data is presented in Wikipedia (among other places):

Category Number aboard Number of survivors Percentage  survived Number lost Percentage lost First class 329 199 60.5 % 130 39.5 % Second class 285 119 41.7 % 166 58.3 % Third class 710 174 24.5 % 536 75.5 % Crew 899 214 23.8 % 685 76.2 % Total 2,223 706 31.8 % 1,517 68.2 %

Figure 2: From Wikipedia

Both represent similar ideas, but I feel the graph in Figure 1 (using parallel sets) reveals a richer data experience.  I also think it contains a “Wow!” factor that might be lost by simply looking at a data table (like figure 2) or histogram.

Here’s another example with (in my opinion) a high “wow” factor:

Figure 3: From Grande Reportagem’s “Meet the World” campaign

(Note:  in case you can’t read it in this image, the colors of the flag represent world statistics:  red = working 14 years old; yellow = studying 14 years old)

Again, these are statistics that could just as easily be presented in a pie chart or table.  But ask yourself: would a pie chart or table grab your attention like the flag did?  And, wasn’t it neat that you didn’t know what you were supposed to get from it right away?  When I use the flag images in MTH 244, I relish the pregnant pause that comes immediately after the students see them.  Then, a moment later, the class lets out a collective, “whoa” when they connect with the representation.  Stellar. 

Let’s talk population, shall we?  What grabs your attention more, the following table…

Rank City State Population 1. New York New York 8,214,426 2. Los Angeles California 3,849,378 3. Chicago Illinois 2,833,321 4. Houston Texas 2,144,491 5. Phoenix Arizona 1,512,986 6. Philadelphia Pennsylvania 1,448,394 7. San Antonio Texas 1,296,682 8. San Diego California 1,256,951 9. Dallas Texas 1,232,940 10. San Jose City California 929,936 11. Detroit Michigan 871,121 12. Jacksonville Florida 794,555 13. Indianapolis Indiana 785,597 14. San Francisco California 744,041 15. Columbus Ohio 733,203 16. Austin Texas 709,893 17. Memphis Tennessee 670,902 18. Fort Worth Texas 653,320 19. Baltimore Maryland 631,366 20. Charlotte North Carolina 630,478

Figure 4a: Populations of US cities, 2006 (US Census Bureau)

…or the image that Time Magazine published in October, 2006, showing the same information?

Figure 4b: From Time’s America by the Numbers  (click on the link for a clearer display of image)

It never ceases to amaze me when an image like the one above stops me in my tracks (I also like that Alaska is sized properly).  However, it’s easy to realize why there aren’t more like it around.  Aren’t blah – blah tables easier to create?  Sure.  But I also want an answer to this: if we can build a better data construct, that reaches out to more people in more ways…shouldn’t we?  

I’d like to close with some examples form one of my favorite artists.  Check out the following:

Figure 5a: From Chris Jordan’s “Running the Numbers” series

Oh!  I get it!  It’s impressionistic, right?  Mmmmm…some French guy?  Well, sort of…look more closely at the ladies with the parasol in the middle of the piece:

 

Figure 5b: …a closer look…

 

Now closer still…

Figure 5c: …A – ha!

What you eventually realize is that the picture is made up entirely of soft – drink cans…106,000 to be exact.  Chris tells us that the US uses 106,000 such cans every thirty seconds. Stop and think about that for a second or two, OK?  Somehow, the idea “106,000 cans” and the image above, while conveying the same message, could not be more different.  

What’s neat, also, about Chris’ art is its scale; this piece, Cans Seurat, is 5 feet high and 8 feet wide, a size he uses frequently.  However, that’s one of his smaller pieces.  Consider his piece Building Blocks, which depicts 9 million toy blocks, equivalent to the number of children without health care coverage in 2007:

Figure 4a: Building Blocks

 As you get closer, you begin to realize that each of those blocks in the original piece actually consists of smaller blocks:

Figure 4b: Building Blocks zooms

 Now, what’s really striking about this piece is its actual size…16 feet high by 32 feet wide:

Figure 4c: Building Blocks with reference

 I believe that Chris Jordan’s Running the Numbers series blurs the line between art and statistics. He’s also amazingly passionate about his work.  If you have time, please spend 11 minutes to watch a TED video where he presents some of the elements of Running.      

Please realize I’m only expressing my opinion here when I speak of the gravity of these images.  After all, they’re only showing data…or are they?  In this age of ubiquitous, not – always – researched  – nor – refereed  information (and atrocities like CNN “text in your answer” polls), we are inundated with statistics.  Not all are meaningful; I’ll even go out on a limb here and say that most data with which you are confronted on a daily basis in media is biased so badly it’s meaningless.  However, if and when we get good data, I believe it’s our responsibility to provide that data in 1) as correct a manner as possible, and 2) in a way that makes the reader stop and think, not from our viewpoint, but from their own.  I believe the examples above do that, and much, much more.  I hope you get as much out of them as I do.

Creating Your Own Blog

By Ralph Phillips, Computer & Information Systems

Blogs are one of the most popular forms of web site available to us. Hey, you’re reading one now. A blog is a specialized web site that displays content in reverse chronological order (most recent at the top). Blogs are created by a series of posts. A post is an entry or article within the blog. Some blogs display new posts once per month while others post five or more per day. Although most blogs generally have an overall theme, there is no rule. Someone’s personal blog could be about politics one day and worm composting the next.

Ideally, the blog posts will have content that is interesting enough for others to want to read. If successful, the blog will build a cohort of followers that will subscribe to the blog’s feed and get notified whenever that blog is updated with a new post. Most blogs enhance the community feel by allowing the readers to submit comments on particular posts.

A blog owner/writer doesn’t need anything fancy to start their own blog. It doesn’t cost anything. If you wanted to create your own blog then you’d probably start with one of the two most common tools for creating and maintaining a blog: Blogger and WordPress.

Blogger (owned by Google), would be my first recommendation for a new blogger (someone who blogs). It’s management interface is just a bit more user-friendly than WordPress. After creating a Blogger account or using your Google/Gmail account, you can create one or more blogs on any topic you like. Blogger, like others services allows you to add new blog posts using a web-based interface. You can also add new posts via e-mail. When you get your blog, it will be available online for all to see at a special web address called a URL. If you’re using Blogger’s free service, your address will be something like http://iron-mitten.blogspot.com/ with the “blogspot” domain. You can use one of the many template designs or you can customize your own if you’re handy with HTML and CSS.

WordPress tends to be the more common blog tool for bigger, more professional blogs. This doesn’t mean you can’t do some impressive stuff with Blogger, but WordPress has a wider variety of customizing options and allows users with their own web servers and design abilities to really make the blog look unique. Like Blogger, WordPress has a web-based interface for management. You can add posts via e-mail, text message, and using a WordPress app for a smart phone. If you use WordPress’s free service, your domain will have “wordpress” in the URL: http://cocclib.wordpress.com/.

With either of these popular tools, you can use own domain if you have one to refer to your blog and your own space if you’ve got access to a web server. When you use your own space, both Blogger and WordPress let you do even more stuff with your blog without added cost.

There a lot of great and interesting blogs out there. I subscribe to dozens of blogs and read them regularly. A few of my favorites are…

• http://www.lifehack.org/
• http://zenhabits.net/
• http://pathlesspedaled.com/
• http://www.labnol.org/

Building Community: One respectful step at a time

by Karen Roth, Diversity Coordinator

At the  last Fall COCC Campus Retreat in September, I introduced, on behalf of the campus’ Diversity Committee, the Principles of Community.  This document was actually retrieved from the inner depths of the Student Rights and Responsibilities webpage, and had been created by a team headed by then Director of Student Life, Sara Henson.  While reviewing this statement, the Diversity Committee decided that it could be used as a set of principles guiding all of our activities and behaviors on the campus, in the classroom, in the workplace, etc.  If you haven’t seen a copy of the revised Principles as yet, here is the link from the Multicultural Center’s website:  http://www.cocc.edu/principles-of-community/

This document, however, only makes a difference in our campus community if we understand it and practice what it asks of us.  For example, let’s say you are having lunch with a colleague and she makes a racist remark.  What will you do?  Do the Principles have anything that would be instructive on how to respond?  I think many of us might feel uncomfortable in this situation but not know what to say.  We don’t want to hear this kind of language, but we also want to maintain the relationship with have with this colleague.  In these kinds of situations, it has always helped me to ask myself a few questions:

• If any of the friends of mine who are People of Color were sitting next to me, how might they feel about the comment?  And what would they hope I would do in support of ending racist remarks?
• Will I be able to maintain my relationship with this colleague now that I have heard what she had to say?  Will this incident somehow change how I feel about her?
• If I don’t speak up, might I be subjected to hearing this kind of comment again in the future?  Or might this colleague think that I share her views about the group she has just disrespected?
• Lastly, what did she mean by her comment?  Did she intend to make a racially maligning statement?  Or did she not know that her comment could be taken as bigoted?

Over the many, many times I’ve encountered this kind of situation, my honest reflection of these questions always prompts me to speak up.  As a way of beginning, it seems most important to find out what was meant by the comment.  So, I often start by asking, “What did you mean by that?”  Often times, the person has no idea that what they said was offensive and they are appalled that they let those words come out of their mouth.  I’ve been in a similar place before as well, when a phrase I grew up with was just common language and I didn’t even know what it meant.  Common phrases among teenagers right now are “That’s so gay!” or “That’s so retarded!”  When confronted, most of them admit they didn’t know that these comments were considered offensive to the gay/lesbian or the disability communities.

At times, however, the person did mean what they said and harbors ill-will towards members of other ethnic groups.  In these cases, I am prompted to take more time to talk further with the person, to find out how they came to hold the views that they have, and to share information or personal feelings that I have about the groups.  Usually we come to a better understanding, and while we may not always agree, the person typically doesn’t repeat similar comments in my presence.  I also believe that even if the person repeats their remark with other folks, our conversation will pop up in their memory and perhaps change how and when they use it again.

Over the years, I have become less worried about how I will be perceived by others if I interrupt an offensive comment and more concerned about the quality of the community that I want to exist for everyone.  By allowing bigoted statements to go unchallenged, we are essentially promoting the level of community that we believe is acceptable. 

At the retreat, I offered the “Tolerance Scale” that I hoped would help us consider the kind of community that we want to foster.  The scale moves from Tolerance (one step better than intolerance, hatred, or bigotry) to Acceptance, Respect, and finally, Advocacy.  While “tolerating” someone is certainly better than actively discriminating against someone, for me, it’s not the kind of community that I want to settle for.  An “accepting” environment is certainly better, but I worry that if there is a disagreement among community members, we may not have a deep enough relationship to sustain our acceptance of one another.  “Respect,” on the other hand, means that I have a deep commitment to someone so that even if we happen to disagree about some  core values, we will still share a high regard for one another and maintain our relationship.  Advocacy takes us even one step further to that place where we will ensure that other people’s rights to a fair and respectful community are maintained.  We will speak up on behalf of others if they are being treated as “less than.”

Creating a respectful and diverse community benefits all of us.  We will be more creative, more satisfied, more productive when we have an environment that values and affirms us.  It’s the kind of atmosphere that helps us all thrive!  It is my goal to help us create this kind of community here at COCC so that we can all enjoy the time we spend together here.

I hope you will join me in making the Principles of Community a living document by practicing the actions that it recommends.  I look forward to hearing your thoughts about our new Principles of Community and welcome your input on how we can further this dialogue.

Could a college degree change your life?

by Tina Hovekamp, Library

Happy New Year everyone!

As we are all wading through high demand for classes, long waiting lists, new student loans, and high stress levels, some may wonder, is this mess all worth it? And does a college degree really make a difference?  Today an advisee of mine emailed me  feeling frustrated with the prospect of additional debt and more hard work to get a degree in the hopes that it may eventually improve his chances to make a good living (thus the inspiration for this post…).

In a recent article by U.S. News & World Report, author Richard Whitmire argued that colleges have become the new high school while college degrees are the most basic tool for economic survival. Some may disagree.  After all, a college degree, besides being time consuming, could be quite expensive! Is there really a guaranteed payoff? According to data from the U.S. Department of Labor, “Education pays in higher earnings and lower unemployment rates.” The graph on this web page from the Bureau of Labor Statistics is quite clear. There is no ambiguity. The payoff  of college education may not necessarily be your dream job right away, but it  certainly seems to guarantee  job choices and  higher earnings.

So, brace yourselves, dear students!  There is a light at the end of the tunnel!  Paying for college now seems like a good investment in your future.

Winter Break Tech Tools

by Michele DeSilva, Library

It’s almost the end of the term.  Whether you’re student, staff, or faculty, you’re probably slammed with end of the term work:  finals, grading, paper writing, etc.  And, you’re probably looking forward to the winter break and having some time to read for pleasure, watch some movies and catch up on everything you missed while buried in books, studies, and end of term work.  That makes winter break a great time to learn about some new tech tools.  Some of these will be useful for the classroom or office, while others are just plain fun and will help you enjoy your break a bit more.  So, check them out, and feel free to submit comments if you’ve got something you want to share!

Jing

http://www.jingproject.com/

This is an increasingly popular tool – with good reason.  Jing is a program that you can download for free that allows you to take screenshots (snapshots of your computer screen) and save them or upload them to a website and link to them to share them.  Not only can you take a screenshot but you can also add text, draw arrows, or highlight parts of the screen (see example below).  You can even make a screencast (record what you’re showing and doing on your screen) up to five minutes long, with or without audio. 

Delicious

http://delicious.com/

If you use more than one computer on a regular basis, Delicious is a lifesaver.  Delicious is a bookmarking tool that allows you to save and categorize (and share) URLs in a web-based application that is accessible from any computer.  You simply sign up for a free account and then you can bookmark favorite sites and access those bookmarks from any computer.  For computers that you use frequently, you can download a widget for your Internet browser’s toolbar that allows you to save bookmarks with one click.  You can also share your bookmarks with others, even with people who don’t use Delicious.  For example, I could share my favorite gardening websites with you by sending you to this URL: http://delicious.com/michanna/gardening.  Some libraries use Delicious to collect sites about certain topics that can be used to answer frequently asked questions.  You might find Delicious helpful to organize sites that you use for research, for fun, or for work.

Google Docs

Surely you’re familiar with Google, but you may be less familiar with some of Google’s useful applications, particularly the Google Docs suite.  Google Docs includes a word processor, a spreadsheet, and a presentation application – all online and all free.  You simply create a Google account, then go to http://www.google.com/ and click on the “more” button at the top of the page.  Choose “Documents” from the drop down menu.  The beauty of Google Docs is that you can access your documents on any computer by simply logging into your account.  You can also share your documents with others (as long as they have a Google account).  You can allow other people to edit or just to view the document.  I have used this feature many times to work on group projects with people who are far away.  With everyone sharing and working within the same document, you don’t have to worry about version control or sending huge files back and forth via email.  The program even keeps track of what’s been edited and by whom it was edited, so you can revert to an older version if necessary.   

For those of you who might be in the process of job hunting, you can use existing templates to create professional-looking resumes and cover letters.  When creating a new document, choose “from template,” rather than a blank document, and you’ll get a list of templates you can use.

 

Leisure Reading and Listening

 Need some over-the-break reading suggestions?  Well, first, you might check out this blog’s summer reading post, which includes a lot of great suggestions.  But, if you want more, you should try LibraryThing (http://www.librarything.com/).  LibraryThing is a site where you can create a virtual library based on your home library, which is nice if you’ve got the time for it.  Even if you don’t have the time to do that, you can click on the “search” tab and then type in the title of a book you liked (see screenshots below).

LibraryThing will return dozens of suggestions of books you might like – enough to keep you busy all break (and then some)! 

Already got some reading lined up or want some non-textual entertainment?  Try a site called Public Radio Fan (http://www.publicradiofan.com/).  This site lists programs currently playing on public radio stations all over the world that you can stream via your computer (some have links to downloadable formats, like podcasts, too).  There are some really interesting and unusual programs to explore, including music of all varieties, radio documentaries, and news programs.  The world beyond Bend is revealed through sound and you’re sure to have an enriching and entertaining winter break!

Tales from the Blacktop

By Sean Rule, Math (i.e., by Sean “Ralph Tells Me My Blogs Are Too Long” Rule)

I work in Pioneer Hall.  Pioneer’s academic office area has the wonderful distinction of housing the most concentrated group of bike commuters at COCC.  A quick poll of the 30 – odd folks that call Pioneer home shows that at least 8 of us ride to work at least during nice weather, and at least 3 of us ride in all weather.  Yay, us!

Now, of course, this translates into many kinds of savings.  For example, if I drove our beater Jeep to work and back each day, Monday through Friday, I’d burn 4 gallons of gas a week.  Also, I’d deny myself the wonderful workout that cranking up Archie Briggs gives me each day.  And, of course, I’d be contributing to the greenhouse gas emissions that I’m currently deleting.  Again, yay us!

However, there is a dark side to bicycle commuting.  I figure I’ve logged, since I started commuting back in Delaware, at least 25,000 miles by bike (including not only biking to work and back, but also running other errands that don’t require a car).  Now, you just can’t expect to ride a bike that much and not have things go wrong.  Flat tires, broken chains, cracked frames…heck, two months ago, I actually ripped the back wheel out of the dropouts.  Bikers call these “mechanicals”, and they happen (and will continue to happen) all the time.

However, there is another class of incidence bike commuters (well, at least me) experience: objective hazards.  By “objective hazards”, I mean this: cars don’t seem to see us (or don’t care we’re there, or care we’re there and want to screw with us), and therefore, we become (un)intentional targets.  I routinely share the more interesting of these events with my fellow commuters here at COCC, and one suggested that we chronicle them.  Well, here are just a few, starting with my memories of my East Coast objective hazards, as well as the lessons you can learn from each:

Riding down Kirkwood Highway (the equivalent of Highway 97…without a shoulder), I turned off into a neighborhood.  Looking right as I made the turn, I was surprised to see a Wendy’s milkshake flying next to me.  Even more surprising was that it maintained trajectory long enough so I could tell it was strawberry.  Lesson: Grow eyes in the back of your head.  While you’re at it, grow them on the sides of your head, too.  Maybe on your butt, as well.    

My wife, Jen, and I (and now my son, Max) will often go grocery shopping with our bikes.  Back in Delaware, before Max was born, Jen and I would ride our cruiser bikes outfitted with racks to the grocery stores, and then cruise back home, loaded down with grub.  As we were riding home one time, a car full of teenage boys went zipping by; as they passed, I heard screams of “Losers!” and “Get a car!”, all of which were ignorable, but I saw one of them throw a bottle out of the window, slightly backwards, as if towards us.  I stood up in the pedals, and upshifted as I cranked like Lance off toward their car, now stopped at a red light (remember, I’m loaded down with groceries).  I caught up to them at the stop light, leaned over, and knocked on the back passenger window.  Surprised, the kid looked up at me, and rolled down the window, not saying anything.  I asked something to the effect of, “Did one of you laboratory rejects drop a bottle?”  Nothing.  You could have heard a cricket chirp.  Then the light turned green, and they sped off.  When they were a safe distance away from the weird guy on the bike, the one whose window I had tapped, leaned out and screamed, “Loser!”  Lesson:  Cars full of teenage boys are also full of unbridled testosterone.  Something happens to these otherwise sweet people that makes them want to perform for their co – passengers.  Avoid them like the plague.     

Coming back from work at Del Tech (the CC at which I used to work), I was cruising down yet another Delaware road without bike lanes (trust me, folks…we’ve got it awesome here in Bend as far as bike lanes go).  As I approached a stop light, I began a track stand; that’s where you stay upright in the pedals without moving forwards or backwards.  I do this to ensure that, as soon as the light turns green, I can take off and get through intersections before cars have a chance to hit me.  Anyway, I’m track standing, and I hear a honk from the car next to me.  It surprises me, and I almost fall over.  Looking over, I hear the lady in the car scream, “Get the (unprintable) off of the road, you (unprintable)”, or something to that effect.  I wander over to her car, lean down into the window, and ask her what her problem is, to which she mumbles something about me taking over the road.  I reminded her that there were no bike lanes on the road, and she mumbled something (again, unprintable) and then flipped me off.  I then picked up my bike and moved in front of her car, where I remained after the light turned green.  I stood there for almost the entire green light sequence, while she (and all of the cars behind her) orchestrated quite a cacophony of horns and obscenity.  Then, in a flash of (if I do say so myself) brilliance, I timed it just well enough so that I got back on the bike and pedaled through as it turned yellow, leaving the angry, annoying lady behind.  Lesson:  Some people just hate you when you ride a bike.  If you encounter one, messing with them can be fun.

So, there are three of the many, many objective hazards I dealt with on the East Coast (don’t get me started about riding in Philly).  However, since moving here, I’ve had a few doozies, as well:

 Riding home on Morningstar about 3 months ago, I was approximately 20 feet from the intersection with 18^th Street when I heard a fantastically loud, drawn – out screeching.  Looking up, I saw an Audi station wagon skidding across the intersection I was about to enter, and finally crashing into the curb 10 feet in front of me, so hard that it ripped the front right wheel off the axle.  Thank you to anyone who held me up that day for even a second, because you probably saved my life.  Lesson:  There is no lesson here.  Sometimes bad crap happens, and you just hope you’re not in the middle of it.   

  Recently, riding home on the same stretch of Morningstar (hmm…maybe I should change my commuting route), I looked up and saw a small delivery box truck peeking its way out of a side road.  The driver is looking down at his hand, and not looking at the road at all, so I look over my shoulder, and, after noting no other traffic behind me, begin to move out of the way (because I just know this joker in the box truck is checking a text message).  I get within 20 feet of him, and I hear the engine rev up and he begins to pull out onto Morningstar without looking up!  Naturally, I scream obscenities at the top of my lungs which, even though his windows were up, he heard.  He stopped (as I rolled in front of him) and I slowed enough to flip him off.  He gave me a little “what are you gonna do” shrug, and I pedaled on.  I probably should’ve stopped to ream him, but…

…I get home 2 minutes later, drop my bag in the garage, still fuming.  As I’m walking to the office to recharge my headlight, the bell rings.  Guess who it is?

The joker from the box truck, delivering cloth diapers to our house!  I open the door (still dressed in my commuting clothes, including my helmet) and I just stand there.  “He doesn’t recognize me”, I think.  So I say, “Hey, you’re the (unprintable) that almost(unprintable) hit me out there.”  This catches him off guard, and he stammers something like, “Well, my GPS was chirping, and I couldn’t find your house”, blah, blah, blah (he actually said “chirping”).  I muttered something else unprintable, and, as he had started turning away, I let him have a little more haranguing, closed the door, and felt much better.  Lesson:  Good Karma shows itself in weird ways.  In this case, it delivered the idiot to my door. 

            As Pam Beyer said, “I like to remind myself occasionally that my commute is normal only because Sean is a gravity well that attracts all commuting strangeness to his route”.  Indeed.  Also, riding in Bend is simple, and usually very safe, especially when compared to the cheating of death that occurred on a daily basis in my commutes back East.  However, as evidenced by the two events of the last couple of weeks (and many, many less severe ones that occur each week), we bike commuters need to stay alert and alive.   

            How about you?  Any good commuting horror stories?  Leave ‘em below.

Punk and Free Jazz Meet at the Crossroads

By Tom Barry, Social Sciences

In a recent ConX posting, Professor Sean Rule, one of COCC’s esteemed mathematicians who freelances during off hours as the drummer for the local punk band Hands on Throat, reflected on the various meanings attributed to punk and its practices.  As Rule stated, it is a form of music often misunderstood by those who do not know its history and purpose.   This is due to many factors, including  punk’s utter disregard of the culture industry including  the organizations, artist and repertoire (A&R) folks who determine what’s hot and what’s not.

The recording industry produces music that meets the industry conditioned desires of the audience.  The industry makes it.  The audience accepts it.  The industry produces more.  Then the audience comes to desire it.  With new organizational strategies and technologies, such as iTunes, the industry becomes increasingly involved in directing listeners to the new artists of the day, artists who are mostly reproductions of the artists who have been chewed up, lost nutritional (market) values and spit out.  Because of its economic imperatives and influence on behavioral conditioning, the industry is not responding to audience demands but rather identifies and reconfigures the demands in ways that best accomplish the industry’s mission.  In the words of Theodor Adorno, a social philosopher and ardent critic of the culture industry, “the culture industry not so much adapts to the reactions of its customers as it counterfeits them.”

While I think George Ritzer’s term McDonaldization is often overused, the concept has certain and valid applications to the production of music.  McDonaldization refers to the fact that an increasing number of life areas follow the organizational principles of the fast-food chain.  The principles include predictability, uniformity, control through automation, and calculability.  The mass production of music follows these principles and, as result, we get exposed to an extremely limited range of music.

Aside from the pressures to conform to industry demands, Professor Rule addresses another core component of understanding punk.  This is the desire to have a voice that is otherwise silenced by dominate society.  The reaction against the corporatization of music is not only about the desire to exercise artistic freedom; it is a symptom of a larger social reality where institutions disregard the voice of people and will only hear that voice if it is presented in a particular manner determined by the industry itself. 

Punk’s development as a medium to air grievances has common ground with the origins and purpose of the Free Jazz movement of the 1950s/1960s.  During this time of advancing democratic ideals of equality for all and an increased consciousness of structured racial inequality, African American artists, from all arts, turned towards the “black aesthetic,” art developed, produced, and performed by and for African Americans.  It was political and truly free.  It was also misunderstood by dominate culture.  But unlike punk, there were no twenty second songs.  Instead, Free Jazz artists performed songs that lasted twenty, thirty, and forty minutes.  Try putting THAT on a record, Columbia and RCA!

Book Exchange at Work – Success or Failure?

By Ralph Phillips, Computer & Information Systems

Over the summer, I frequented a number of coffee shops with book exchange programs and participated in one here in town. It was great. I discovered some new books and was pleased to see that books I left were taken–hopefully by someone who enjoyed them and later passed them on.

Why not set one up at work? Creating a book exchange isn’t difficult at all. A common area where many of your co-workers congregate is an ideal place to set up a book exchange. You could leave a stack of books on a counter, but I went for the much more official cardboard box with sign approach (see video). I wanted my co-workers to enjoy a couple of great books I read recently and leave some new ones to keep the exchange thriving.

We’re at week seven in the term and all of the books I started with to “seed” the book exchange box are still there. It does look like someone left a magazine, but that’s been the only activity.

Optimism ahead…

Perhaps this book exchange needs a little advertisement. Or, maybe I’m not using enough technology (a common excuse for many of my failed experiments). Plan B will be to check out an online book exchange like BookMooch. The way BookMooch and similar book exchanges work is to provide members with a much larger selection of free books. It’s actually kind of a cool process:

1. List the book(s) you’ve got available to give.
2. When somebody requests your book, you mail it to them (you pay the shipping).
3. Mailing a book earns you a point.
4. You can now use your point to request a book from anybody else. They ship the book to you.

That’s about all there is to it. The rules are pretty simple, and you need to give at least one book for every two that you receive. You also get partial points for listing books. I’m going to start my BookMooch account by listing:

• The Marine Aquarium Handbook (apparently my Florida hobby doesn’t sell well in Bend, Oregon)
• The New Saltwater Aquarium Handbook
• Touching the Void
• About a Boy
• The Complete Guide to Marathon Walking

In a later post, I’ll report on my experience with BookMooch.

“Why do you guys sound like such unbelievable crap?” An analysis of the post – mainstream hardcore thrash community’s population and draw

By Sean Rule, Math

So, I’m a musician.  Well, actually, I’m a drummer; I hang out with musicians.  And the guys with whom I hang out and play music play very loud, very thrashy, very energetic music.  As a result, we usually play to very few people.  We have our moments of well – attended glory (see photo 1, courtesy of Dearric Winchester at Focus on Infinity Photography), but, usually, we play to about 30 people, give or take a few.  And, they’re usually highly inebriated.

 This is nothing new to me; I’ve been playing drums in punk rock bands since many COCC students were learning their ABC’s (some would say that’s why I should stop), and the turnouts have usually been abysmally low.  This is not something that upsets me; that’s the topic of this little piece.   

The reasons for punk rock’s low turnouts are subject to great speculation around the Hands On Throat (my current band) practice space.  The first and most obvious explanation is the character of our music.  Most mainstream “punk” bands (by the way, that phrase is idiotic in itself; by definition, punk rock needs to be reactionary to the mainstream) write catchy, melodic, poppy, easy – to – aurally – digest songs that are the “correct” length.  My band writes songs in collapsing keys that grate against the ear, whose tempos start and stop so frequently that you can’t bop your head to keep time (let alone dance), and whose lengths vary from 20 seconds to 4 minutes (with a median of around 2.5 minutes, I’d imagine).  Add to that the vocals, which are usually screamed at top volume and maximum snottiness, and you’ve got a recipe for a room clearing.

“Sean!  You’ve just described the solution to your problem.  Fix your songs!”, you might exclaim.  Well, you see…that’s it.  I don’t want to fix anything, because I don’t think anything’s “broken”.  Take, for example, the entire body of one of my favorite compositions, “Look Ma…Opposable Thumbs!” (you can listen here)

“What sets us apart?  Not much.  Just timely execution of clever evolution. Stylized monkeys all are we.  Don’t take yourself so seriously.”

That’s it.  That’s the idea I needed to convey.  It took 10 seconds of screaming, and just about a half of a minute for the entire song…but the idea gets delivered.  It wouldn’t work in any context, other than hardcore thrash.  Somehow I don’t think Green Day could’ve pulled it off (nor could we have pulled off “Basket Case”, their first big hit after signing to a major).   

What’s the formula for a hit song?  Who knows?  I certainly don’t, and most “artists” don’t either.  Producers and engineers often get hold of a raw song idea and morph it into something it wasn’t and will never be again, outside of the confines of a studio.  It’s no longer real; it’s a façade.  Digital recording has made this worse; now, any jokers with a PC and an illegally downloaded version of Pro Tools can pollute MySpace with their “band’s” “songs”.  But I digress.

Wait a minute…maybe I’m onto something!  Back in the early 90’s, shows were announced via fliers.  This required paper and footwork.  We would roam the streets hanging fliers on light posts until we were asked to stop by local authorities, at which point we would go door to door to the closely knit punk community’s residences and drum support.  Nowadays, bands “flier” by posting jpegs online.  As far as I can tell, very few people actually look at these postings, or, if they are seeing them, they’re not moving people to make it down the show.  Actually, I think that the internet has made it harder to book shows.  We’re all inundated with material online, so if a flier is added to the mix, who’s to say it isn’t simply flushed out of our minds like a forwarded email about the perils of drinking coffee?  Or was it plastic bottles?  Ah, whatever.

OK, so the answer is that 1) my band writes annoying music, and/or 2) the internet is ruining everything.  Hmmmmm…that seems too easy.  Maybe it’s pop music itself.  Let’s revisit that one.

Consider the equal tempered scale: 12 notes, perfectly arranged, which can be arranged into ear – pleasing patterns.  From that scale, musicians for hundreds of years have built melodies.  Some are very well known: the Ode to Joy from Beethoven’s 9^th symphony; Barber’s Adagio; Louie, Louie.  But, what makes a melody great?  Memorable?  Timeless?  There are a whole infinitude of possible combinations of these notes, yet only some are pleasing, and fewer still ring true years after their recordings.

 As a thrash band, we’re not trying to make pretty music…we’re trying to make quality music, in the vein of great bands (you’re never heard of) like Refused, Propaghandi, and DownSet (see note 1 below) . We’re trying to craft lyrics that are at once succinct, poignant, and thought – provoking.  We want to sing (and scream) songs about equality, positivity, and awareness.  I want to play my drums as fast and as hard as I can possibly play, driving my band and the few folks in the crowd to the very brink of collapse…and to get people’s attention away from their Blackberries and their beer, so they can hear what’s on our minds. 

Yeah, this kind of music is an acquired taste, like anise biscotti or Guy Ritchie films.  As such, our devotees are few and far between.  But, once the taste sets in, it never lets go.  See photo 2?  That’s a picture emailed to me about 4 years ago from a guy who used to watch my old band, Plow United, play in Philadelphia.  The phrase he had tattooed on his chest, “at least I’ll die believing”, comes from the Plow United song, “The World According to Me”:

“As I go, from day to day, I keep my head before me. And if time should end today, at least I’ll die believing.”

I wrote those lines in 1993.  More than a decade later, I received that picture from 3000 miles away.  Tell me that isn’t rad.

We’ll never be “successful” in the normal sense.  I won’t have a gold record.  The records I do have, however, are sold, traded, and stolen worldwide.  Our songs are floating around, some on cassette tapes, some on CD, and some online…and I love it!  I’ll never have a video on MTV, but I’m constantly sent (from former bandmates, scenesters and friends) forums and videos that have popped up with comments like, “I wish I had a chance to see them live… their music changed my life”.  We’re not pretty, we’re not easy listenin’, and we’re not sonically agreeable…but we’re real.  And that, I think, is what people like.

At least, the 30 that come to our shows.    

Endnote: Interestingly enough, I was going to hyperlink a My Chemical Romance song (“Welcome to the Black Parade”) in this blog to compare a commercial pop band (them) to a nasty, abrasive hardcore band (us).  However, Warner Brothers (MCR’s label, I presume) pulled the clip.  That means that, rather than let fans enjoy the song and its video, they’d instead chose to deny fans the avenue to spread attention.  Never have I been happier to not be attached to the commercial machine that is the record industry.  Do It Yourself!

---

[1] If you choose to watch these clips, you might notice things like, “Hey!  DownSet sounds like Rage against the Machine!”  Yup.  DownSet was, however, around years before RATM’s mainstream success.  Why Rage got popular and these guys didn’t is beyond me.  Also, I suppose I should warn you…there are some “bad words” in there.  George Carlin, rest his soul, would be thrilled.