Poet Ponders the Digital

While I am a proponent of online education, some "market realities" are starting to concern me. Education is unlike most products in several ways, but it is still a service-based product. Let me first explore the traditional higher education markets, the rising "Big Box" market, and the current challenges. Then, I will explain how I see the future and why bookstores and computer shops offer some warnings. What is the traditional "market" for higher education? There are at least four major, and countless minor, markets. The following are the four major traditional higher educations markets: 1. The "nearby and affordable" model of most state colleges and universities. For most students, these institutions were chosen based on price and location. As with grocery stores, discount retailers, and other commoditized goods, price and location become the primary criteria for selection for a significant percentage of consumers. My wife and I comple...

I've talked to a few authors and editors who wish to create custom templates for iBooks Author, well beyond what is possible making minor changes to fonts. To create a custom template with altered background images and formatting, first create a simple iBook using an existing template. If you are familiar with the ePub format, which is a compressed directory, you know there are several folders within the ePub. These folders contain what might be compared to a self-contained website. I like the ePub structure and wish iBooks were closer to that format than they are. But, Apple goes its own way. The iBooks format is much simpler than ePubs. Do you wonder what is inside an iBooks "iba" file? To find out, do the following: Copy your ".iba" (I use the Apple-D "Duplicate" command in Finder) Change the extension from ".iba" to ".zip"  Double-click the ".zip" file, which will uncompress the folder Explore the new fold...

You probably noticed I took something of a leave from blogging much of this month. My wife and I took turns being ill with the flu, which upended our schedules, including our writing projects. Because work had priority, we had to delay website and blog updates while we attempted to recover the lost two weeks. Recovery has been a little slow, at least for me, since I was already dealing with some minor physical issues. In the coming weeks, I hope to return to my normal schedule of posting to each of my blogs at least once weekly. Ideally, I will manage to post on some of the ideas I've jotted down and you'll see two or three posts a week the blogs. Unfortunately, as I'm recovering we're getting ready to move into a new house. I'll be ending the school year, moving, and preparing to teach summer school. At least I know where my hours go each day: they are consumed by a dozen things other than my writing. I do keep telling myself that sleep should be optional, yet ...

Visalia Direct: Virtual Valley March 5, 2012 Deadline April 2012 Issue Getting Fit with a Virtual Trainer “Lose weight,” the doctor advised me, “or you could be headed for diabetes.” I’m the first to admit I had added a few extra pounds while completing my doctorate. There’s a lot of sitting and reading when you’re in graduate school. When I defended my dissertation in 2010, I weighed more than 230 pounds. Looking back 25 years, I was skinny. Not thin, either, but seriously scrawny. When I graduated from Golden West High School, I was 120 pounds with a 27-inch waist. By 2010, I was approaching twice that size. Back pain was getting unbearable. I was using a cane frequently and hobbling about with sore knees. Yet, I couldn’t seem to lose the weight. I knew I had to, but I was stuck in a cycle of losing a few pounds and gaining them right back within weeks. During Christmas break, I was reading health and fitness articles online. One of articles I read was about the “CNN He...