Stress

[altivo]

So, Gary is enrolled for an online course this summer. Or we think he is. The university keeps waffling about whether there are enough students enrolled for the class to run. They said there would be no class meetings on campus, yet he has been told to attend an opening session tomorrow night, on campus. He had another class that was largely online already, but that involved just receiving and turning in assignments and doing tests online. He still had live lecture sessions. We assumed that this would be similar but with readings of some sort instead of lectures.

Wrong. Apparently they expect to deliver lectures by streaming video. This week he is advised that he needs a DSL connection. Don't have that, can't get that. Not available where we live, period. He wanted to sign up for Hughes satellite internet (eeww!) but it turns out that they say no streaming video. WildBlue says the same thing. Apparently the lectures are in fact recorded and can be viewed repeatedly, but they say you can't download them. This seems absurd to me, but whatever. If they were downloadable, he could manage. Either we'd get them (slowly) overnight and play them back the next day, or he could download them at one of the local libraries. He's all depressed and figures he'll have to drop the course. It will be ironic, I think, if he drops and that means they don't have enough students to hold the class at all.

Note: This course was not listed in the class schedule and was only advertised by word of mouth among the instructors. It was not available on regular registration and he had to go through the department secretary to enroll. I think there's something entirely fishy about it, but in any case, it's no wonder they didn't get enough enrollees.

On the whole, I'm very unimpressed with the technical competence of either faculty or IT admin at both colleges he has been attending. These people all seem to be trained monkeys pushing buttons, with no conception of what's behind the curtain or the cost in bandwidth or resources. No wonder I've started to feel that recent graduates of US colleges are resemble trained monkeys more than they do rational, educated people. The faculty can't even describe the technical requirements for the course in any but the vaguest terms. Questions like "how much bandwidth is really required" or "how much disk storage and RAM is needed in the student computer" get blank stares and handwaving. They really have no idea. I can't even go buy him a wireless laptop to take to the public library and do his coursework, because they are so vague on the requirements that I can't be sure of getting what he would need. It would represent a major squeeze in our budget anyway, but I'd risk it if I had at least some notion of what they really are doing.

Comments

[rustitobuck.livejournal.com]

It'd be interesting to see if you can get mobile broadband at your location. Verizon says most of northern IL is solid availability, and their new MiFi broadband access point looks neat ($FREE at Amazon, $60/month for 5GB). I could come by with my (company funded) Sprint EVDO card for a practical test, but I'm lending it to a coworker for a few weeks.

That or if you can find a neighbor who's line-of-sight and has service, maybe somebody radio savvy can set up a point-to-point WiFi with a strongly directional antenna.

It's strange that you can't get something fast. I visit places much more remote than your county that have DSL and/or cable broadband available almost everywhere. At the very least, it's piggybacking on wires that somebody wants to sell a lot of TV channels on. Not that I think you're into huge TV.

It's hard to believe anybody doesn't have or can't get broadband these days...and it wouldn't be the first time there were unmentioned prerequisites for a college course. I've been hung up on those a lot.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

A couple of neighbors have satellite, one is Hughes, one is Dish network. They have two story houses that are not surrounded by four story trees, though. Another neighbor has wireless from mc.net, but they put up a 60 foot tower to get it. A fourth was able to put the mc.net wireless on an old 20 foot television tower that they already had, but they are on top of a hill. They still had to remove a large tree to obtain the line of sight.

AT&T owns the phone lines here. They are in lousy shape, and often dubious even for voice. Buried alongside the roads in the 1970s or something like that, they are deteriorating badly. DSL is not available, and they have no plans to upgrade. There is no cable TV within three miles. People who watch television have satellite dishes. The neighbors on each side, who are in the same grove of 70 foot tall oak trees as us, have tv dishes. One is on the peak of a 2-1/2 story house (our house is a low ranch style) and the other is on a pole next to the road where it gets salt and snowplow damage in winter and cost an extra grand to install. We don't watch television at all, so there's no likelihood I want to do that.

We are in a "hole" in the cell phone network. Cell phones work in the house but only marginally. Typically you get one bar on the display, two at most. Our phones are from VM, and use the Sprint network. Even the GPS units have trouble locking onto satellites in our house or driveway. You have to get out onto the road before they find themselves.

According to Statistical Abstract about 40% of US homes are still in similar conditions. Because broadband penetration in the US is driven entirely by the short-term profit motivation of private corporations, there has been very little advancement in the last six years outside of urban areas. The "advanced" US is falling behind the rest of the developed world because of this. Obama has made appointments and announced a major thrust to improve the situation, but that will take several years if it works at all. The Bush administration was relying on broadband over power lines (BPL) to let the energy companies profit from the demand for internet connectivity. BPL is a failed concept for the most part, and has not fared well in the marketplace. It also generates tremendous RF interference to other equipment, including radio and television reception, so it only gains acceptance in areas where people have cable (meaning urban areas again) and is resisted everywhere else.

[rustitobuck.livejournal.com]

The operative phrase is "in the house". If you were to set up some kind of fixed-point cellular broadband to WiFi setup, just a yagi on the outside of the house pointed in the direction of the cell tower could make a huge difference.

Lots of equipment can use external antennas; my EVDO card has a socket hidden behind one of the rubber grips.

The key may be to look into certain aftermarkets. There are resellers for the cell companies that work this kind of niche, selling the data access cards plus routers and antennas. If you're interested, I could help do some footwork on the web.

What we really need is a data/broadband equivalent of the REA.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Obama has appointed a "broadband expansion" guy, moving him from the FCC (which has done nothing in the last 8 years to help) to the Dept. of Agriculture which is where the REA ran back in the 30s and 40s. That should help if the funding is made available, but will still take years. I'm also afraid it will focus on the wilds of the Dakotas and Montana rather than those of us stuck in the "betweens of exurbia."

I'm not at all sure I can afford EVDO, from what I've heard about it in the past. In particular, too, tugrik, who knows a lot more about this stuff than I do, has had some pretty negative things to say about the various providers in the field. I'm also afraid that even a yagi antenna alone cannot do much for us. We are in deep forest in the summer. I like it that way, and am willing to forego broadband internet to keep that, but Gary is not happy about it.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Oh, and while the three neighbors who do have connectivity are friendly, one of them has two teenage sons and the other two are operating businesses using their connections, so I wouldn't even think of asking to share their bandwidth.

[bladehorse.livejournal.com]

They have to train Someone to push the buttons on the fryers afterall :p
Sad to hear that payin that kind of $ gets you barely an education.

I didnt realise that streaming wasnt allowed on the sattelite net servers. I was thinking of going that route again, but the rates jumped way up again, and Very limited bandwidth, Unless you Dare go over the max allowed in 24 hours. Then they just take your house.
We went from 56 k (Supposedly) actually 18.5-21 at best at 20/mo to broadband 60$ /mo at 256 up, and 1.5 mb down(Supposed) Unfortunately there are no other providers in our area :(
I Really hate to throw this money away every month, but dialup is pointless.
This is Definately Not helping the debt out at all.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

We have two dialup providers and typically get 36 Kbps. The best is about 40, on bad days it's 32. One is the same dialup provider I've used since 1982 and costs $20 a month. The other is a local company at about $12 a month. We keep them both because it means we have an alternate connection if one goes down, and we use web space from both of them. Their equipment is rated at 56K but the phone lines are not capable of that speed.

Without putting up a high tower, neither satellite nor wireless broadband are accessible to us.

Education is only as good as what the student is willing to put into it to learn. Most students these days don't give a shit, and are just there to mark time or get a certificate that says they are employable. It's no wonder that the schools are declining too.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

The satellite companies don't have an outright ban on streaming video, they just say it won't work well. Likewise, VPN and VoIP don't work. It's a problem related to latency and the 45,000 mile round trip to the satellites. The TCP acknowledge for each packet can't get back to the server fast enough, I suppose, so the stream is delayed and broken into jerks and pauses.

I remember something like this happening even on old dialup BBSes in the 1980s if you were using a satellite long distance service.

[schnee.livejournal.com]

"Really fishy" sounds about right, yes, although I'd also accept "really, really, really incompetent".

[altivo.livejournal.com]

I think this "distance learning" stuff is a crock of bull shit anyway, and colleges are just using it as an income generator. Yes, they are incompetent because they can get away with it.

[rustitobuck.livejournal.com]

That or colleges are in a financial crunch. My son ends up having to do a lot of his classes online, but makes sure he can get to an instructor during office hours. The college is 2-3 miles away. He's had many classes cancelled due to low enrollment, especially summer classes.

On the up side, he's taking Calc 2 this summer, and bought his online book (hey, saving paper works for me) and online access to Matlab, and last night he was happily reviewing Calc 1. I guess review materials were available for free with whatever online package he bought.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

I've never tried to deal with an electronic version of a textbook, but suspect I wouldn't care for it. I hate technical manuals that are only available in electronic form. They are just too cumbersome to use.

Ordinary books that you read straight through, on the other paw, are fine on a portable electronic reader, though I wouldn't like being tied to a desktop computer to read them.

I firmly believe that education requires contact not only between student and teacher but between peers in order to be effective. The virtual-internet-electronic communications world is simply not adequate for that yet. When there's so much bandwidth that it can be done in a virtual reality SL type world, perhaps I'll say it works.

[schnee.livejournal.com]

It could well be - I have no experience with this, of course, but it might well be that it is and that they are, yes.

[marzolan.livejournal.com]

It sounds like a guinea pig course to me.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

I'm more inclined to call it an out and out scam. They take your money and you get nothing.

[saythename.livejournal.com]

Sad, but true. >.<

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Well, but you seem to think that about most higher education and I don't agree there. This particular school is not doing its job, however.

[saythename.livejournal.com]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8Pk1UYkB3I

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Ugh. The Stooges always repelled me. But I'm sure they have nothing over these guys in Dekalb.

Now you're in MY territory :D

[gabrielhorse.livejournal.com]

*eyes go big & glassy and a huge smile spread across my face*

Oh happy day, someone else is annoyed at the state of teaching facilities today ^_^ Sadly, nobody "in charge" has the faintest idea of how to do anything competently at any learning establishment I've been to around my area, which encompasses a pretty wide range for someone without a car.

The haves & have nots at colleges & universities are ridiculous- did you know I'm not even allowed to be on a BCC campus around here unless I'm enrolled? Some dipshit secuirity guard informed me of this the last time I was online at a stand alone comp in their lobby- the only place a nonstudent is allowe d on their campus is the library- where they only let you stay on ONE HOUR PER DAY, regardless of how few people there are there (and yes, the numbers are rapidly dwindling). Amusingly, he waited to inform me after I got off and was leaveing, making a comment about me running off that damn near made me get up in his ugly face about what a rat-faced toothpick of a worthless peice of crap he was. Someone who spies on you for two hours & waits until you're about to leave to give you a little verbal bitchslap (while I'm eating, no less) has no right to imply you're avoiding a confrontation.

Can you imagine, being allowed intoone building of a facility- which isn't easy to find for newbies- but nowhere else on the grounds? WTF? Maybe the White House, but this is a freakin' community college! There classes aren't even that good!

Like Altivo, I've found anything you ask the staff at any facility has to called in or someone has to contact someoneelse to get any real answers to any question you have, at least here in Brevard County. On top of that, most of them are serious control freaks- best to know your stuff because if you want to do anything they don't specifically set within the guidelines (which get more absurd every day- like having one row of one hour comps for non-students while three rows for students almost always go unused or neglected) of acceptable behavior, you're likely to be given some of their lovely "you've got no business here" attitude or you're just downright asked to leave. So remember, BCC- it's only for current students now. Former students or those interested in learning without paying +300 dollars need not appear on campus, period. And yes, they still treat people of color worse than whites here ;) Also, good luck on returning your textbooks, they regularly get newer ones so you can't return the older editions for a refund.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Some of that is probably Homeland Security crap, which has permeated most of the US with paranoia and fear, driven by power hungry twits who like jobs as security guard when they couldn't qualify as a real police officer. Some is very likely also caused by past problems, which may have been severe in some areas.

I can say that the two community colleges I've had exposure to around here are not like that. Yes, some things are reserved for actual students, which isn't unreasonable. The public high school is the same way. But the community colleges here are pretty proud to try to act like the public service institutions they are supposed to be. There still have to be some limits, of course, lest abusers make the place unusable for others.

Homeland Security is a crock.

[gabrielhorse.livejournal.com]

I'm just voicing my frustrations. There are nine people in this college library right now- two of them are students; they get about 20 comps (in this room alone) to use whenerever & as long as they want. The rest of us have to vie for six computers & get one hour a day, period. I think the abuse here is on those of us who aren't paying +300 bucks to walk trhough the doors- which don't work half the time, to begin with. Oh, the guy next to me just ran out of time whilst in the middle of something- they're giving him some crap & he's being relocated to one comp they can hover over & watch him while they apparently grant him an extension- probably a future student. Looks well-dressed which no doubt has somethign to do with it.

Homeland Security is a crock.