Learning Environment Challenged in Wisconsin Capitol

Never missing an opportunity to slam the University of Wisconsin, State Representative Steve Nass (R-Whitewater) decided to exploit one for the home team and display his own ignorance when it comes to academic research.

It seems that the misguided and misplaced Assembly Chair of the College and Universities Committee is a bit miffed about the reports of research in on line learning environments. As reported in The Capital Times, It's not all fun and games:

"We are trying to figure out a whole new genre of online learning environments, how people learn in those environments and what they learn," Rich Halverson said today in an interview.

Rich and Erica Halverson are doing research on how people learn and are using online gaming, such as fantasy baseball, as part of their work.

To Nass this is just plain foolish: "The people running the UW System really ought to consider taking some of this material and piloting a television sitcom."

Nass would rather leave Wisconsin in the dark ages than pass up an opportunity to take a crack at the University of Wisconsin, especially the Madison campus.

But as Halverson pointed out, these games take people who might otherwise know and understand about sample size and statistical formulas, into a world they might never explore.

From my own experience, if it was not for fantasy baseball, I would not be so adept at using Excel and all of the wonders it can accomplish in creating graphs, formulas, comparisons, and such. All of which was of great value at work when I had to do analysis of millions of dollars in travel expenses, which in turn led to changes, saving our our company and our customers money.

Oh, and between my two baseball leagues, I  won four championships. So there.

Comments

[dicta]

Steve Nass and Frank Lasee. They are Wisconin's tweedle dumb and tweedle dumber.

BTW, my dictionary says that the correct spelling is environment not environement. But, what do I know. While sleep typing (kind of like sleep walking)the other day, I posted a piece where I dumbassedly used Alan Lasee instead of Frank Lasee.

[grumps]

Steve Nass is the textbook anti-intellectual. It's not that he's not book-smart. It's that he's not even really magazine-smart.

He has no imagination, little curiosity and an ego that prevents him from asking a question before opening his mouth and making himself look to be an ass.

[marius]

The system merger, decades old now, is the worst thing that ever happened to the University and to higher education in Wisconsin.
Adding to the mess: Fewer and fewer state legislators are Madison graduates.
Their ignorance-based, self-serving targets are endless - the Law School most recently, and now this.
And the UW-Madison is often enough its own worst enemy.
By the way, wouldn't it be amusing if every UW Law School graduate in the state declined to make ANY political donations to Republicans this year?

[marius]

The system merger, decades old now, is the worst thing that ever happened to the University and to higher education in Wisconsin.
Adding to the mess: Fewer and fewer state legislators are Madison graduates.
Their ignorance-based, self-serving targets are endless - the Law School most recently, and now this.
And the UW-Madison is often enough its own worst enemy.
By the way, wouldn't it be amusing if every UW Law School graduate in the state declined to make ANY political donations to Republicans this year?