Paul Romer of Stanford University is one of my favorite economists. Romer is the founder of Aplia and a pioneer in the new growth theory that was discussed in Chapter 8 of your e-book. Romer’s father, Roy Romer, was the former Governor of Colorado and the Superintendent of the LA Unified School District. I was fortunate to have dinner with Paul Romer a few years back and I can tell you in spite of his brilliance he is a truly nice guy. I have no doubt that he will win the Nobel Prize in economics for his contributions to growth theory.
To learn more about Romer’s work on economic growth see David Warsh's book Knowledge and the Wealth of Nations , or look at the Economist article "The Growth of Growth Theory" in its 18 May 2006 issue. . You can also listen to a recent podcast interview with Romer in the excellent EconTalk series hosted by Russ Roberts. Or alternatively you can read the transcript of the EconTalk interview with Professor Romer.
Once macro minds start thinking about economic growth it is hard to think about anything else. You may want to consider a topic relating to economic growth as the subject of your Discussion Board posting.
Extra Credit: Address the question: Is Aplia an effective tool for improving student learning? Do the Aplia homework assignments increase your learning potential? I don’t want to hear whining that the questions in Aplia are hard. The questions on Aplia may seem hard, but they are not any harder than they would be in any standard transferable economics course. What I want to know is if you think that Aplia is a technology that leads to better educational outcomes. What do you like about Aplia? What are its weaknesses? Do you have any suggestions for improvement? Aplia’s pitch to professors is that the students do more work and the professor does less. I am also interested in knowing what other techniques that you think are useful to create a successful online learning environment. I have set up a forum on the Discussion Board called Aplia Forum. I will give between one and four points for every thoughtful post on Aplia and creating a thriving online learning environment. One post per student please. The number of points that you will be awarded to your Discussion Board Extra Credit account depends on the length and quality of your post. To earn the maximum of four points your post should be thoughtful and several paragraphs in length.
