Will notes that Microsoft has set up an RSS feed for topics of interest to educators. I admit it, I'm curious and, as of a few minutes ago, subscribed.
The first entry I looked at connects to a white paper at the MS site: Learning in a Connected World. Even downloaded it. But let me make one thing clear to the person from Microsoft who comes here as a result of the obligatory corporate egosurf. When the page told me that the paper explores, and I quote:
A solution architecture to help educators map a technology infrastructure to the challenges faced by institutions today.
I can't tell you how close I came to unsubscribing right there. Laugh all you like at the tortured prose of academic writers, poststructural theorists, etc., but this is abominable stuff. An architecture, and a solution architecture no less, to help me map an infrastructure to challenges? OMG.
At least, the page doesn't use "leverage" as a verb--oh wait, that's in the subtitle.
I know that it's basically an extended advertisement for MS products, and I know that every network generates its own jargon which is more or less opaque, but still. Look at it this way: if academic prose is so bad as to function almost like a second language, why in the world would we want to learn a third language in order to be advertisted at? Hire a couple more Discursive Efficacy Engineers, would you?
(I'm available on a consultant basis)
Oh, sounds like they had a little help from the Dilbert Mission Statement Generator.
The other day, I saw "trend" used as a verb.
I wept.
I'm afraid I giggle-wept when I saw the following from the guy who designed the Dilbert MSG:
"Note that a few of these individuals seem to believe that I make mission statements for a living, and that my Mission Statement Generator is a serious attempt to automate this process."
That's what you get for attempting to leverage humor solutions, I s'pose.
cgb