Sociology Live!
Sociology Live! is a series of open source videos available on youtube.com for faculty and students in sociology. Using VideoScribe technology, these videos precisely explain complex sociological theories and concepts and engage both auditory and visual learners. Engaging different types of learning styles is important as students report losing attention in class can be as short as 30 seconds into the class period and up to 10-20 minutes in length. Students report shorter lapses in attention when faculty use non-lecture pedagogy. With each video being six minutes or less they can be easily incorporated into any face-to-face Introduction to Sociology course or embedded online. Discussion questions are included at the end of each video.
McDonaldization
Efficiency- finding the best or optimum means to an end.
Calculability- The focus on quantity over quality.
Predictability- Knowing what you are getting from one place to the next.
Control- The focus on non-human control through technology.
Ritzer believed it leads to a deskilling of the workforce. Why have a human do it if a computer can do it efficiently, calculably and predictably every time? Of course, this is meant to be the most rationale system of operation although it might be more irrational. Further examination of McDonaldization can be found on pages 127-128 in Sociology 2e by OpenStax College.