More Harvard College classes turning into Extension online courses

The Crimson has an article about 25 Harvard College classes that are being turned into online courses for the Extension School for the 2006-2007 academic year. The list looks interesting, but of course, the missing element is live classroom participation with students and professors.

My study space ...

Some shots of my study space, where most of my research, blogging, and writing takes place. My rig is a circa 2003 iMac which -- believe it or not -- runs on a dial-up connection. That's all I needed to conduct thousands of searches on LexisNexis, write dozens of papers (and export them as PDFs, thanks to the Mac OS X PDF support), and hundreds of blog entries. I have to admit, though, that dial-up is tough for uploading photos to Harvard Extended, or downloading music from iTunes. It typically takes five or ten minutes to do each of these tasks.

The colorful object right in front of the Mac are some poker chips that my son found and dropped on my lap while I was working -- Extension School students with young kids know that family distractions are an inevitable part of at-home study!


The bookshelf is overwhelmingly China-oriented, and includes textbooks, journals, and books I've read for fun (which I haven't touched for years, there's just no time). My favorite book in the lot is a used copy of Fosco Maraini's Meeting With Japan. I picked it up at the local library sale a few years ago, and am amazed at this man's tale and his beautiful writing about Japan.

Runners up would be 1587, A Year of No Significance: The Ming Dynasty in Decline (Ray Huang's fascinating look at everyday life in the Ming Court in the late Ming dynasty) or The Memory Palace of Matteo Ricci , by Jonathon Spence, a biography of the famous Jesuit who lived in the Ming court. Both of these books were introduced to me by Merle Goldman, who taught Chinese history at Boston University when I was an undergraduate.

Links: PRC vs. US Internet vigilantes; LA's Chinatown transforms; parachute journalism in the Middle East

• A tale of two countries: Internet vigilantes in China and the U.S.
  ESNW (東南西北) once again looks into the "Internet hunting" phenom in China. Like Harvard Extended (see earlier post), he makes some comparisons with what goes on when the Internet mob tries to take someone down in the U.S. and in China


• Old Chinatown fades, and a new Chinatown rises in LA
  LA's old Chinatown, a daytime world of family associations and neighborhood shops, is declining. What's rising in its place? A trendy nighttime Chinatown that thrives on art and youthful vigor. From the LA Times.


• The perils of parachute journalism in foreign countries
  A former CBS Middle East correspondent looks at the errors, gaffes, and ignorance of some American television anchors and correspondents covering the war in Lebanon.

Review: Blind Shaft (盲井)

I am not sure where to start with this review. I liked Blind Shaft (盲井) a lot, but I am not sure many others will -- it showcases none of China's more exotic aspects, instead concentrating on the filthy underbelly of capitalism, and the struggles of the innocent and not-so-innocent ordinary people trying to survive and succeed in China's new system.

Frankly, it's a depressing film that will disappoint people who have preconceived notions of what China and Chinese people are like. The setting is the coal mines and nearby market towns of China's northern provinces, and most of the characters are rough miners, unscrupulous mine bosses, and prostitutes. Greed and desperation motivate everyone, but every so often softer, more touching characteristics shine through their hard exteriors. Director Li Yang and the actors very effectively tell this story. Like Li's Fifth Generation predecessors such as Zhang Yimou (张艺谋) and Tian Zhuangzhuang (藍風箏), the ending of Blind Shaft is abrupt and unexpected, and viewers are left to puzzle over questions of fate and justice.

Watching this film, I was reminded very strongly of Zhang Yimou's The Story of Qiu Ju (秋菊打官司, see Harvard Extended's review), which also featured this type of ending, and was shot in north China using techniques more common to documentary filmmakers -- the use of unstaged street scenes, natural light, and real building interiors instead of sound stages.

Other Harvard Extended reviews:

Chungking Express (重慶森林)

Grave of the Fireflies

Ju Dou (菊豆) and Blue Kite (藍風箏)

Links: CIA blogger fired; blogs and human rights in China; the eBay of China cracks down

• CIA contractor/blogger gets the boot after criticizing torture
  BEA Systems fired one of its employees who works at the CIA and operates an intranet blog (i.e., not accessible from the World Wide Web) after she criticized torture. Interestingly, this was a condoned activity until she criticized U.S. policy. There are other CIA bloggers on the Internet too, says the Washington Post report.


• Rebecca MacKinnon on human rights in China -- the cost of censorship
  This Harvard Berkman Ctr. blogger weighs in censorship in China, blogging, and her recent, not-secret-anymore trip to China.


• Chinese online auction firm cracks down on counterfeits
  Taobao.com, The eBay of China, is cracking down on companies that auction counterfeit goods. From ChinaTechNews.com.

The Harvard Extension 2007 catalogue, and the new ALM in Management

The new Harvard Extension School 2006-2007 catalogue is out. There are some interesting history selections, including two courses on Chinese history: China: Traditions and Transformations (one of the instructors is Henrietta Harrison, whose research interests include the history of Chinese nationalism, and is author of China: Inventing the Nation), and Contemporary China: The People's Republic and Taiwan in the Modern World (taught by Bill Kirby, the former FAS dean). Unfortunately, these two classes are online only. I recognize that the professors are leaders in their fields, and putting them online allows a much larger group of students to take part, but the all-important classroom discussions and back-and-forth with the faculty will be limited in an online setting.

Here's another interesting element of the 2006-2007 catalogue: A new ALM program in Management. This is a master of liberal arts, not an MBA, although clearly the Extension School is tapping into the interest in management degrees. The online description of the program is sparse, and from the course listings it seems that the focus is on a limited number of areas. Not sure if a thesis is required. Anyone have other details, or, if you've enrolled in an MBA before, can you give an opinion based on the public materials the Extension School has provided?

Links: PRC uses PR tricks on online forums; Using the 'Net to read Chinese; the decline of the CD shop

• China hires 'Net squad to sway public opinion
  Via the UCLA website, which is in turn via The Times of India, which itself picked up a story from a Chinese newspaper (nanfang ribao, I believe): A few crafty cadres have learned a few Internet PR tricks to shape discussions and debate, such as seeding online message boards with pro-government posts.


• On Chinese website design, and using the 'Net to read Chinese ...
  William Moss, via CNet Asia, delves into the challenges of reading Chinese websites, and describes tools the Chinese-impaired can use to get through challenging texts. He recommends an excellent site, Adsotrans, which "will take a hunk of Chinese text and annotate it with pinyin and translation that you can see by rolling over words and phrases."


• Dinosaur du jour: CD retailers
  What's missing from CD shops these days? Young people, reports the NY Times. Interesting -- and sad -- observations about the socio-cultural aspects of buying records/CDs in person, something which we may not be able to do 10 years down the road.

Links: India bans blogging domains, Chinese views of iPod sweatshops, the state of AI

• World's largest democracy copies Chinese mass media controls by banning certain blog domains
  There's a big slashdot discussion about India banning domestic access to blogspot.com and other domains which distribute blog content the government doesn't like. However, I predict the ban can't last. I'm not saying that because I am a blogspot blogger, but because India technically is a democracy, and features some notable qualities that are lacking in its neighbor to the north -- India has a lively mass media environment which seems to have wide press freedoms, and a government that is answerable (on some level) to the wishes of its people.


• Chinese 'net users: iPod workers deserve more!
  I spotted this item in ChinaTechNews.com, about an online survey conducted by Chinabyte.com that found 94.12% of those polled "call on Foxconn to increase the benefits offered to its workers who assemble the Apple iPod."


• AI Reaches the Golden Years
  Hard to believe, but "Artificial Intelligence" is 50 years old this year. Too bad it still remains a distant dream. This excellent Wired article gives an update on the status of AI.

Links: Cuomo finishes Harvard and Weezer, problems with a video-based content analysis, big Harvard donors have second thoughts

• Say It Ain't So, Rivers
  One of Harvard Extended's favorite bands, Weezer, is gonzo. This comes just a few weeks after Weezer's main songwriter, Rivers Cuomo, finished his epic Harvard College education -- more than ten years from start to finish!


• Problems with using computer-assisted content analysis of video content
  Jon Toigo's DrunkenData blog looks at an interesting content analysis project that attempts to correlate langauge development with "external events and patterns that the child experiences," based on many hours of video footage. Some problems he's identified: Storing petabytes of footage, automated transcription of the audio, and funding.


• So much for the capital campaign ...
  A bunch of deep-pocketed Harvard alums have put the brakes on $265 million worth of donations to the University, after President Summers left. I'm disappointed, because these were worthy academic initiatives. Besides, it's not like they were giving the money to Larry -- or is that what these donors thought? Anyway, the Wall Street Journal broke the story, but here's the Crimson's spin.

Links: Chinese protest in an online game, inside an adware operation

• Online games as a place for Chinese to protest
  From ESWN (東南西北) blog. The article doesn't describe the comments that accompany the mass of players, but you can just make them out in the screenshots -- anti-Japanese curses ("Where are the Japanese dogs?", "Thousand deaths to Japan"), "represents" ("Representing Sichuan") and even a Chinese reporter announcing his/her presence. More evidence of how the Internet can confound Chinese mass media controls. An MMO game game becomes the site of an online anti-Japanese demonstration for thousands of Chinese players.


• The Plot To Hijack Your Computer
  Business Week analysis of an adware operation. Note the seat-of-the-pants content analysis of the hate mail that one company, Direct Revenue, receives (second paragraph). I'm not worried about adware or spyware -- I use a Mac, and as far as I know, most of these programs are designed for Windows machines.

Links: Yoshikoder, content analysis and Mexican elections, educational podcasting

• Yoshikoder blog
  Will Lowe at Harvard has a blog devoted to a cross-platform, multilingual content analysis tool, Yoshikoder. A short tutorial is here.


• Content analysis detects Mexican electoral fraud?
  Andrew Gelman examines a content analysis that finds unusual patterns in the early results of the Mexican presidential election.


• Podcasting craze hits classrooms
  Lightweight Boston Globe article about podcasting at local colleges. OK if you are new to the concept, for deeper digging read Harvard Extended's own articles: "Where have all the podcasts gone?" and "Educational podcasting: Why isn't Harvard doing more??

Links: data mining Chinese blogs, China Daily/ImageThief on human rights, a greying China, more doubts on MBAs

As my summer school class and thesis are now in full swing, I am going to turn off essay-style posts for a while -- I just don't have the bandwidth right now. But I will be posting links that I stumble upon. Here's the first batch, gathered over the past few weeks:

• Data mining Chinese blogs to understand consumer trends
  An interview with Sam Flemming, founder of CIC data, a start-up that has created text-mining tools to track blogger and BBS conversations to better understand Chinese consumer trends (ChinaTechNews.com)


• Pot calling the kettle black?
  ImageThief responds to China Daily column on U.S. human rights abuses


• The downside of the one-child policy: A nation of senior citizens
  The New York Times describes a demographic trend that will eventually result in China's seemingly limitless pool of young factory workers drying up, while the population of elderly citizens increases rapidly.


• The MBA is broken
  Computerworld's Mitch Betts points to more evidence that MBAs are not all they're cracked up to be.