How Technology will Change Education

click to read on aeon

In September 1994, I taught a class to Harvard doctoral students. I finished my lectures the day before the course began, took my slides (printed on paper) to a shop in Harvard Square (Gnomen copy) to produce transparencies. When the course began, I placed the transparencies on the overhead projector in sequence. When all the transparencies were done, the course was over. Everyone was relieved. 

In January 2015, I taught a finance class to undergraduates at Chapman University. During the class, we day-traded stocks, we communicated through the course Facebook page, and we watched (educational) TV over the internet.  As a kid, I saw video phones on the futuristic Jetsons cartoon. In my course, we Skyped with business men and women in a variety of locations from Salt Lake City to Stockholm. One of our video calls was to a finance professional who Skyped from his iphone in a Wall Street Starbucks; Science fiction has become reality.

Video conferencing was science fiction, now mundane

Greece, Finance, and Politics

My thoughts on Greek debt. 

1. Greece is not going to repay its debt. 

2. Germany/Europe can afford to pay Greece's debt. 

3. Greece's debt is a political crisis, not an economic crisis. 

Trouble in Greece

Context for tomorrow's Jobs Report

I published this chart before the May jobs report came out because I expected the jobs report to be strong (meaning more new jobs created than Wall Street Expectations).  The jobs report was stronger than expected, See this headline, for example, "May Jobs Report Stronger than Expected with 280,000 Jobs Added."

More jobs is good for people looking for jobs, and for those who took the jobs. Is a strong jobs report good for the stock market?