Discussion: The Pros and Cons of Life-Changing Ideas

Changing the world with new ideas doesn’t always bring positive outcomes, such as the addition of value to a product line, a business, or a society. When faced with innovative ideas, marketers must take into account both the potential positive and negative effects of putting those ideas into practice.

To prepare for this Discussion, review articles about self-driving cars such as those that are being developed by Google. Consider the positive and negative implications of introducing these vehicles into the market, focusing specifically on the possible social and economic impacts. 

Post an evaluation of self-driving cars from a design perspective. Your evaluation should include the following:

• A description of the positive and negative social and economic impacts of self-driving cars.
• An analysis of the feasibility of introducing self-driving cars in the United States and in India, given the impacts you have identified. In other words, do the benefits of the product justify the means/impacts? Explain why or why not.

Coming from a traditional school, I find it hard to teach as many of the basics students need. Maybe they do not need as much from one course. I teach Environmental Science and most of the time I skip the formulas, math and chemistry, just to get in the major concepts. For example, one week is global warming. Students poat to the discussion question and respond to two other students. This leaves out the hydrological cycle, nitrogen cycle, phosphorus cycle, chemical reactions, hazardous waste, not to mention the biological equations.

I seem to be teaching enough for them to be able to intelligently look for topics online. How do you get the basics in with such a short class?

I am interesting in learnng how much time other instructors spend dealing with student computer crashes and other system compatiblity issues.

Far too often I will get an e-mail from a student who is taking an online exam and that student will claim that the exam crashed.

It forces me to reset the exam often after a student has seen most of the questions.

How do others handle such situations?

Thanks,

I love the concept of learning by teaching. I teach composition and literature courses, and I discovered in my first semester of teaching composition that I learned more about writing in that process of teaching my own courses than I ever did in taking composition courses myself. This is why I have tried, in both on-ground and online courses, to make collaboration and peer review an essential and frequent tool for learning. When students are responsible, at least in part, for another's success, as well as their own, they seem to invest more and to internalize and actualize course content more readily. I would love to "hear" everyone's thoughts on learning by teaching!

Thank you!

Best,

Beth Miller

As an online instructor, do you feel that asynchronous, synchronous of a combination of these tool types, is most effective in the online classroom setting?

I have a the biggest challenge of winning studets back after a long absence, how do I win them back?

The main issue in teaching art-based classes online is the lack of copyright free images to help hold lectures together and convey not only historical information, but also current styles and techniques. Based on the workshop I just attended only a small portion of an image may be used within a lecture and that usage is limited to a one-time occurrence. Any image prior to 1929 is fair game and may be used within a lecture. That help's when showing students great works of the past and to further vital historical information. The main issue occurs for all modern styles and techniques. It was suggested in the workshop that Clip Art may be used, however in an art class I would stay always from using bland and generic samples.  Besides, those techniques are not where I would encourage my students to move stylistically. I believe I will now start the process of reaching out to fellow artist who I know personally so help fill the missing gaps. With consented written permission, the images may and will be used for demonstrations.

Hello,

Do you think the fast pace of online teaching enviroment allows you, the educators, for the holistic approach and evaluation of the learning process, other than the learning outcomes?

Looking forward to your thoughts.

Agnes