”It would be very similar to what the generic recommendation is inside the book. The first habit is to be proactive, to take responsibility, and take a lot of initiative. The second habit is to begin with the end in mind, because all things are created twice—first in the mind, and then in fact. And the third one is to put first things first. It makes your security come from within, rather than from without. Once you’ve achieved this independence, you can work on the habits of interdependence—think “win-win”; seek first to understand, then be understood; and synergize. The seventh habit is to sharpen the saw. Exercise yourself physically, mentally, emotionally, in your relationships … and then spiritually recommit yourself to make a difference, to live in total integrity.”
This article on how to effectively teach large classes had nothing to do with technology and everything to do with how people work, individually and in groups.
Good reminder to me of the fundamentals. And I love it when the teaching of the subject (“how to teach large classes”) can be modeled as you’re teaching it!
Over the wall, outta China …to Hong Kong, that is.
I, for one, applaud Google’s decision to leave China (and all that revenue and 400 million netizens comprising 36% of total chinese netizens and all that other ‘oh no can’t do that; it’ll cost ‘em money’ crap) in the face of more and more restrictive censorship rules being forced on them.
Doing the right thing is always going to be the right thing. Period.
Yes, they did sign a contract with the Chinese gov’t agreeing to abide by chinese law, which includes censorship. They shouldn’t have. I’m glad they saw the light.
I must be in the minority as google stock took a plunge this morning. (I wish I had money to buy some!)
Wall Street pundits even suggested a cagey smirky middle way by which google could buy into some other company and keep a presence in China without actually tarnishing the principles and ideals represented by the name “Google.” (Apparently Yahoo did that some years ago with a company called Ali Baba). Keep the name clean while getting only the feet muddy so that you can still make money?
It is worth noting that China is an independent and sovereign state – humans give those the right to operate by their own rules. Well, in theory mankind acknowledges that. But then we promote a ‘higher law’ which we invoke (with or without acknowledging a Supreme Spiritual Being behind that higher law…I’ve always wondered where a higher law would come from if there weren’t a Supreme Spiritual Being). Where was I going with this? Oh… yeah. Right:
Multinational corporations influencing sovereign states such as China.
The democratization of the world by multinationals.
1. The load balancer health checks are configured on the load balancer. You see them in your webserver.log file as
Date/Time IP Address 200 GET /webct/checkStatusForLb guest
The interval is usually 10 seconds.
They’re used by the load balancer to determine whether a user requesting a session should be sent to that node or not. If the node doesn’t respond, end user sessions aren’t sent there.
Weblogic also does health checks. A couple of different kinds it turns out. Here’s where you find them in your Weblogic Console:
2. Peer Connectivity. How are my sister nodes? Are they available to replicate my end user sessions if I’m unable to handle them all?
Left Panel > Environment > Servers > Click on Configuration tab, Tuning sub-tab and hit the Advanced portion at the bottom of the screen to reveal all. We’re interested in the Period Length and the Idle Period Until Timeout
By default, as I mentioned Friday, in Bb Vista (8.0.3 is the one I checked) this is set to broadcast once a minute (60000 milliseconds) and to consider the peer unavailable if 4 messages are lost.
As far as I can tell, our cluster has suffered no ill consequences if a node thinks its peer is gone. Probably because our loads are quite small and because the load balancer’s health checks are still indicating the node is able to receive end user sessions.
3. Domain or Cluster Health. The admin is also asking managed nodes whether they are still participating in the cluster, and probably whether the designated JMS node is still running the services the Admin believes it to be.
Left Panel > Environment > Servers > Click on Configuration tab, Health Monitoring sub-tab (scroll to the right)
By default the health check interval is every 180 seconds . Auto-restart is also enabled so that the Node Manager application could automatically attempt to restart the node services or the server itself if the node does not report appropriately. (I think that’s the best way of saying it). I have a feeling this setting is used by other settings…
One size fits all? Of course it doesn’t. Yeesh. I didn’t just fall off a turnip truck, you know. There are multiple ways to get a college degree….
All? All? For most of us it is a foregone conclusion that everyone should aspire to and attain a college degree, by whatever method works best for them. Attaining the degree may be two years at a community college, transfer to a 4 year institution; or, 4 years at the best your loan can cover and the outcome degree finance…
Why should everyone attain a college degree? To maximize their income potential, of course!
What is a college degree? A commodity which helps me maximize my income potential… WHERE is this tedious blog post going?
No, no, no… there is a human spirit, a LIFE, at stake. To maximize a life, there are certain attributes individuals could choose to foster for which the traditional process of gaining a college degree may actually be detrimental. And oddly, horribly, for some individuals the valued attribute of “a love of learning” will be killed by the traditional process of gaining a college degree.
SHAME ON US!
Especially in an age where technology now supports so many different lines of inquiry, so many different methods of learning and even gaining practical expertise about almost anything.
Compared to Loyola and Marquette (~11k to 13k students) and 70 to 90 IT staff, Notre Dame’s IT staff is huge, ~300 (~13k students).
Loyola’s total portfolio is 150 projects at any one time. Projects are prioritized twice a year.
Marquette’s total portfolio is 60 projects. Do not have as mature governance structures as Loyola.
Although Loyola uses a PMBOK based project management approach, they’re trying to use a right fit approach for each project.
Their Project Management Offices provide training and oversight. Maturing in PM begins with the observation (from their office) (into IT projects) that changes behavior.
This is higher education. It probably goes without saying what we call things, the terms, the nomenclature, is going to be debated. Maybe there’s a point. We’ll see.
Do we call it a Learning Management System (LMS)? Do we call it a Course Management System (CMS)?
A colleague of mine eschews “Learning Management System” because a mere computer system can not manage learning. I would argue that a system can be useful to humans to manage their learning and such a system might be called an LMS. Not because IT does the managing, but because its useful to us for our managing… (It’s a tool, not an end-all, be-all replacement for the human who does the learning or the instructor who facilitates it).
So, whatever. It’s a Learning Management System for now.
So, WHAT is it? WHAT does it do that’s so helpful to humans for managing their learning? A wider question, what should it do? Is there anything it maybe shouldn’t do?
Possibly. But nutty in my own way. Standard disclaimers do apply. Any potential claim to nuttiness is my own and can not be construed to apply to my employer, my colleagues, my family or those of casual acquaintance.
The commentary and opinions represented on this blog are my own. They may be influenced by those I admire..which you'll catch on to if you read with any frequency.
