Internet cartoons -- triumph of the nerds

xkcd.com

The Economist published a neat article on Internet cartoons. It begins with a quick history of cartoons, from their origin in the caricatures and illustrations of early modern Europe to Punch in Britain, where the term “cartoon” was coined in 1843. The modern comic strip emerged as a by-product of the New York newspaper wars between Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst in the late 19th century, but cartoons became bland with large-scale syndication.

Then the Internet came along -- Punch went out of business, newspapers declined and the quirky, individual comic was reborn online.

The article goes on the highlight several online cartoons: SMBC, XKCD (and its companion blog What If?), The Oatmeal, Hark, a Vagrant, Dinosaur Comics, Megatokyo, Ctrl+Alt+Del, Penny Arcade and Bear Nuts,

Check these out -- if you are the slightest bit nerdy, you are guaranteed to find some you like. The Internet may have zapped newspapers, but it has revitalized comic strips.

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Update 5/9/2013

XKCD has published a weird cartoon called "Time" at http://xkcd.com/1190/. It appears to be a still image,but just leave your browser open and come back half an hour later and you will see that the image has changed. It goes on and on and on and on. You can read more about this and see the sequence speeded up at: http://econ.st/11ltc8A.

The Economist on the past, present and future of MOOCs

The December 22nd issue of The Economist has an excellent survey article on MOOCs. It begins with England's Open University, which has offered degrees on radio, television and more recently the Internet since 1971, surveys the present and speculates on the future.

We have noted the global nature of MOOCs and the article introduces Futurelearn.com, a newly formed coalition of British universities led by the Open University. It also points out that eight of Coursera's 33 universities are outside the US.

In looking toward the future, the article considers various funding and certification possibilities and includes some provocative quotes:

• Clayton Christensen, a Harvard Business School professor and author of “The Innovative University”, predicts “wholesale bankruptcies” over the next decade among standard universities.
• Sebastian Thrun of Udacity predicts that in 50 years there will be only ten universities left in the world.
• A spokesperson from Oxford says that MOOCs “will not prompt it to change anything,” adding that it “does not see them as revolutionary in anything other than scale.”
• A Cambridge spokesperson says it is “nonsense” to see MOOCs as a rival; [Cambridge] is “not in the business of online education.”

(If Christensen and Thrun are correct, what institutions will pick up the research and service activities of today's universities? Professors do more than teach).

The article covers more -- asking what the implications are for poor people and those in developing nations, whether we will see a two tier education system, how MOOCs will be tested and certified, etc. Check it out for yourself.

#digilit #jiscdiglit #highered #edreform #MOOC #pedagogy #EDUCAUSE #bonkopen