Update to the Update: FSA Conference Hotel Block is Open Online ♦

It appears that the the Department of Education removed the access code requirement and it is now possible (as of this afternoon) to book a hotel room via the website.

It will be interesting to see how long the main hotel room block takes to sell out. Here is to spending the week after Thanksgiving (2012) with your favorite 7,000 to 8,000 friends.

Update: Waiting for the FSA Conference Hotel ♦

First, ChangeDetection.com (see earlier post) did work and I received an email notification within minutes of the website changing this afternoon that annouced the FSA conference room block was open.

Downside, it was probably too early, since currently the online reservsation system is not accepting the access code. Some forget to flip the switch? Instead I called the reservation number and was able to book my room.

The room block opening will probably be in NASFAA News on Monday morning, so you probably have the weekend to book your room at the main conference hotel.

OS X Mountain Lion ♦

When you first start off trying to solve a problem, the first solutions you come up with are very complex, and most people stop there. But if you keep going, and live with the problem and peel more layers of the onion off, you can often times arrive at some very elegant and simple solutions. Most people just don?t put in the time or energy to get there.
-Steve Jobs

I have always held this quote closely and reminded again today of it by Shawn Blanc. With the release of OS X Mountain Lion today it continues into be true. We need to approach more areas of our work with this approach.

Department of Education’s Final Financial Aid Shopping Sheet → →

The Department of Education has been busy--new financial literacy counseling, new consolidated financial aid information website that does not look like it was last updated in the '90s and now a finalized Financial Aid Shopping Sheet.

It looks pretty good and many schools have already been moving to provide this type information to students (since long before this became a discovered political issue). Yes, all of this information is needed in order to make an informed choice. A few things:

1. I can hear many third-party system vendors growning about how they are going to pull this off. First who sends out paper award letters/packets, so this will need to be put on student portals.
2. More paper and disclosurers are not the answer. One-on-one personal contact and counseling is the solution. This is a little hard for many schools in an environment of declining resources and increases regulations. Many schools are finding great ways to still do this and have student-centered financial aid processes.
3. If you have to find better ways to explain something (because it is complicated), it might mean that it is too complicated and needs to be rebuilt.

The Department of Education should be leading the way to simplify how higher education is funded, instead of pilling a dozen extra "things" on top of the problem.

Getting closer to ubiquitous fast connection to information → →

Fraser Speirs writing about 1:1 deployment in K-12 schools using the iPad:

The shift towards LTE cellular networking - which is typically faster than the broadband in a school - is starting to look like an interesting option for schools that cannot provision or scale their networks to multiple thousands of devices.

When using the iPad at coffee shops or hotels during conferences, I do not even bother anymore looking for wifi. It is exciting that schools are looking to go that direction.

Forget "traditional" social media means of communicating to students about financial aid, via facebook, twitter, or the less "social" of email, web portal, or snail mail. We should be thinking about push notificaitons. I am only half joking.