Monday, July 21, 2008
Tellio's InterWeb Notes 07/22/2008
Tellio's InterWeb Notes 07/22/2008
Sunday, July 20, 2008
Twitter Updates for 2008-07-20
The Learning Knife That Cuts Both Ways
Saturday, July 19, 2008
Twitter Updates for 2008-07-19
Tellio's InterWeb Notes 07/20/2008
Friday, July 18, 2008
Twitter Updates for 2008-07-18
Without Borders? Teachers or Educators
Thursday, July 17, 2008
Twitter Updates for 2008-07-17
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
Twitter Updates for 2008-07-16
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
Twitter Updates for 2008-07-15
Monday, July 14, 2008
Twitter Updates for 2008-07-14
Tellio's InterWeb Notes 07/15/2008
Sunday, July 13, 2008
Twitter Updates for 2008-07-13
Tellio's InterWeb Notes 07/14/2008
Issuu: Create Your Own Magazine
Saturday, July 12, 2008
Twitter Updates for 2008-07-12
Tellio's InterWeb Notes 07/13/2008
Friday, July 11, 2008
Twitter Updates for 2008-07-11
Thursday, July 10, 2008
Twitter Updates for 2008-07-10
Wednesday, July 09, 2008
Twitter Updates for 2008-07-09
Tuesday, July 08, 2008
Twitter Updates for 2008-07-08
Tellio's InterWeb Notes 07/09/2008
Monday, July 07, 2008
Sunday, July 06, 2008
Twitter Updates for 2008-07-06
Test of Ping to My Blogs
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
Monday, June 16, 2008
Is It Over? I Don't Hear No Fat Lady Singin'
We only have nine days left of this project and our continued time together will be over.Google Reader (63) Sherri Pryon
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
How You Blog WKUWP23
I have pulled a few posts randomly from the WKUWP23blogs as just a light sample of your work. Very cool, toes dipped in the cold, but glorious tech water. Now...just jump in.Memos from the Conference Room » Thoughts on Pig Meat
Affordability-Pork is cheaper than steak. Period. With that, it’s much more likely that I would partake of a culinary wonder drenched in a heavenly sauce from a man selling pork out the back of his van than going to Chez Snooty’s and enjoying steak au poivre with grilled asparagus and mashed cauliflower with a balsamic reduction. Give me a beer and a few ribs and I will be a much happier man. Alex
GoodMy Blog » Blog Archive » June 6, 2008
morning. We have had a very active morning, learning more about
technology. I didn’t know that there were so many things that you can
do on the computer. I thought that I knew things about computers, but
then I met Terry. WOW. It will take the rest of the writing project to
digest the things he told us this morning. Amy
My writing wasMy Blog
abruptly put on hold while my children were little. Thoughts were still
scribbled onto paper-ideas for a story or a poem. Once I shared my
writing with my husband, who did not appreciate them at all. He thought
writing was a waste of time and made me feel like why anyone would want
to read my words. So my words were locked away for several years.Years
flew by and the children grew. I soon found my self to be a single mom
struggling to make ends meet starting college for the first time. In a
class, I was asked to write. My teacher was as old as the hills; yet
unlike another teacher long ago, this lady told me I had a gift. And to
unlock my heart and let my worlds flow. Nancy D
Yesterday ILife Has its Moments » About me…
was a little overwhelmed with all the information we received and I was
simply amazed by the fact that I now have a blog site. I was so amazed
that I forgot to really mention anything about me. My name is Hanna
Gill and I am 26 years old. I will be starting my fourth year of
teaching in August at Butler County High School where I teach
English/Journalism/Leadership. I am currently a member of the Writing
Project at WKU and I feel so blessed to be here. This is an amazing
experience. I am excited to learn all these new things that I can take
back to my students and pass on to them. Hanna
TheBlah Blah Blog » tgif
first week of the writing project has flown by! Many new friends and
colleagues to share experiences and apprehensions. Tons of technology
paths to remember.. is there a techno mapquest? If so, sign me up.I
know how my students feel when I introduce a new concept and expect
them to wrap their little brains around it post haste. So, in a way, I
have “been in their shoes.” This is an important experience for me,
because now I can empathize with their wide eyes and overloaded brain
cells.So much for the first week. Bring on the potluck! Kim
Hello,My Blog » Blog Archive » Writing Project, Day4
everyone! This is day four of the writing project. So far, it has been
a jam-packed experience full of information, technology, sharing, food,
and fun times. I’m really looking forward to the rest of the time here
this summer! I’m sure I’m going to learn so many valuable things I can
take back with me to share with my school!Now, for a little bit of
information about me. I have never had a blog before. It’s something
new and exciting, and a little bit scary at the same time. We’ll see
how it goes… :) Some more info…I’ll be teaching at Edmonson County High
School this coming school year. I’m so excited! Here’s the school
website. Leanne
One of theMy Blog » Blog Archive » My First Blog
first memories I recall regarding writing involves a snowy Christmas
morning during my preteen years. For some reason, I had convinced
myself and apparently Santa, a.k.a. - my mother, that I needed a diary.
I had deceived myself into thinking I needed a secure location to store
all the secrets a 12-year-old girl could gather. The diary was found
under the Christmas tree that year, and the rest is history. This
inexpensive treasure was the catalyst for a life-long love affair with
writing. From that point in my life, I have always surrounded myself
with some type of journal and all the essential tools required to be
the owner of one. Rita
Okay, IMy Blog » Blog Archive » Jumping In
am leaping, I am jumping from blog reader to blog writer. This is a
surprising part of Writing Project 23. I didn’t know how much I would
get to learn about technology. I am pretty technology aware, I’m not a
novice, but I’m not distinguished either. Great chance to learn
more.I’m really enjoying NWP interactive. There are some amazing pieces
posted there. I think I am getting addicted.I may even get my own
weather blog, just like John Belski! Weather is another one of my
passions! Sherri B
Well todayMy Blog » June, 6, 2008- Day 6 of WKU Writing Project
completes my first full week with the writing project. I am excited by
all that I have learned during my journey this week but am exhausted
from all the late night reading and writing I so willingly did. I am
charged with the same excitement I remember from my first college days.
Today Terry Elliott caught up with us again and gave us more info on
how to manage the blogs he helped us to create. My notes seemed so
clear as I was jotting down each new website or tool he mentioned, but
I am concerned it may all look like greek to me later when I finally
get a chance to really try it out. I’m so glad to have a resource for
managing the blog and look forward to learning more from him! Once
again we were given time to work on writing and/or reading projects, so
my partner and I worked on our demonstration project for Monday. We
really polished it up, and I feel much more comfortable with presenting
on Monday. We stopped for a delicious pot luck lunch and then headed
over to the WKU Library & Museum. What fascinating history! I
really enjoyed seeing the snapshots of the past and their connections
with the present. As week one comes to a close, I look forward to
stopping for some R&R over the weekend. Until next week… Sherri D
Do youPryor Writing » Blog Archive » Hot and Cold
ever wonder how hot summer weather and colds go together? Pondering on
this idea since about 2am I wonder WHY they go together so well? Trying
not to turn our house into an igloo (so I can breathe) and yet when I
step outside to view the Tractor Parade in a few minutes- I won’t be
able to breathe there either. So many things go together hot/cold: pie
and ice cream, snow and hot cocoa, well you begin to understand.What
does not go together…summer weather and colds. Sherri P
Hi!My Blog » Blog Archive » First Posting
This is my new blog page—Wow!! I am soooooooooo proud!! This is the
fourth day of the Writing Project—it is so very exciting. We are all
learning so much and sharing reading, writing, and just life in
general. It is such a joy to be here. I’m not too good with tech
stuff!! But, this is so awesome!! Veronica M
Sunday, June 08, 2008
Complexity is a Bitch! Root hog, or die!
Humans as a race have always found a way to adapt. That is a very fair statement and one backed up by evolutionary history and biology. Our many-layered brain is a physical text of this adaptation. Given this premise the question remains: how will we adapt? More specifically, how will teachers adapt to this changing environment. We can continue to game and tweak the status quo. We can strike out toward some new 'thing' that we cannot call 'school' but can claim is learning. Or we can do both: lay tracks for the new right next to the old. Or we can try a million other new new things. Nicholas Taleb says that the only certainty in these scenarios is that we cannot predict which one of these new parallel tracks will be the right one. In other words, what we as teachers need to do is to remain learners, to be bloodhounds for this new scent, and to be ready to try on and cast off many of the trails we discover before we find one that works for our learners. And then keep doing that.
It means (to switch metaphors) that we need to value the adaptive over the institutional model. An adaptive teaching model in our current predicament most probably requires a wildly adaptable institutional model. We need a way that says the only charter a school needs is to help its students learn and to be accountable in some reasonable way for that learning. What we need is a way to make schools-of-one just as viable as schools-of-many. What we need is a world full of learning brokers or coaches or entrepreneurs or what-have-ye who can coggle together a virtual architecture of formal and informal systems to help us learn.
I can think of two examples that exemplify this: Ravelry and Stronglifts. These are both 'convivial' tools in the best Illich-ian sense. The former is a knitting site that is so much more. It is a school where you can learn to knit. It is a place to teach others. It is a place to ask questions and provide answers. It is formal (the site has a structure and rules) but it is also informal (the site has as many forum on as many topics as can be imagined). My wife is a better knitter because of it. Plus, she is now much better versed in the tools of our socially networked metaverse.
The latter, stronglifts, is a personal training website specializing in showing its participants how to get stronger. I have been reading this site from its inception where it has gone from zero to 15,000 subscribers in a year. Its owner/blogger/manager is a Belgian named Mehdi. Recently, he started doing personal training. One might well ask how someone can teach weight lifting over the web. He combines some old school and some new. He has a forum on his website run on good ol' phpbb. He has a paying forum within that site for his students. In this weight lifting academy he has individual training logs for each student. I keep diet and training logs every day or nearly so and he comments daily. The most interesting part is that I make videos of myself as I lift and then upload them to YouTube. I mark them private and send a share invite to him. He watches the vids and makes suggestions. This dance of feedback and change works for me (although he is a fierce taskmaster whom I have nicknamed Torquemada).
Root hog or die. That's what one of my music acquaintences, Mojo Nixon says. I know that this is hard. I spent $150 on gas last week for my various vehicles. I am going to have to learn how to reduce this burden or find other work, but I am already moving towards that change on several fronts. What I am saying is that school can no longer afford to look like it does any more than I can tolerate 30% increases in transportation each year. Garmston's suggestions in your post, Will, are all well and good, but I don't think most folks will tolerate the consequences that flow from it. It's like the suggestions in the new book, Brain Rules. We know what we ought, yet we do not. I do believe that as our affordances change so too will the ways out. Just like a real hog, schools will find a way, but I guarantee you that they will appear to us in ways that are unexpected, new, surprising, and perhaps both better and worse than what we now have. Complexity is a bitch. Get over it.
Wednesday, April 02, 2008
Research Proposal
In the 2006-2007 school year I taught all of the general education English classes. They continue to prove a fresh challenge to both my teaching methods and my teaching content. I doubt I will ever be a burnout. A rust-out, perhaps, but never a burnout.
English 100
In English 100 I continue to require in-class and out-of-class essays using various discourse forms. I allow for constant revision, but with an increasing emphasis on “significance”. In other words I am requiring that students truly re-view what they have written in light of comments and class work so that revisions are at minimum more in line with the publishing world’s 20% new material requirement.
I discovered Cathy Birkenstein and Gerald Graff’s They Say, I Say this past year and find it to be a revelation. When my enhanced 100 students begin the fall semester, many have no clue as to the ‘tribal’ rules of academic writing. They don’t know the game and they don’t know the moves. The idea that reading might be a conversation to which they are a party is new and strange to them, but TS/IS clues them in on some of the biggest secrets. The templates that the authors provide are a real comfort to students who are thrashing about for something to say in a way that won’t get them bloodied on their papers. This book provides a way out of this difficulty that makes sense and a way in that is useful for all of their university writing contexts.
I am beginning to move toward using weblogs more in my classes. Their capacity for generating public writing available for public comment is unparalleled. One of my arguments for creating a university-wide blog presence was that Blackboard couldn’t do this revolutionary job of providing a ‘printing press’ for each student while blogs can.
Last year I confined much of my blog work to the students’ semester long “I-Search” projects. Students used the weblogs to thrash out their topics, to generate first drafts, to get feedback from others, and to sometimes get responses from outside the classroom community. This year I plan on doing this again, but I also will be creating a class weblog, which will have its own rotating editorial board. This board will gather information from their classmates’ weblogs and from other sources relevant to the class community to be published on the class weblog.
Lack of confidence is the mark of most of my enhanced 100 students. I hope this responsibility will give them greater facility in their ability to enter into even more interesting conversations both inside our academic community and out.
All of the new initiatives are made possible by our new lab and by our room assignment there. The document camera alone makes for interesting new improvisations every day.
English 200
I spent 2006-2007 totally online with English 200 and I was totally uncomfortable. I thought that my experience with weblogs and other social writing platforms online (forums, wikis, etc.) would give me a leg up on this online business. In some ways it did, but mostly I discovered that teaching online is exactly the same as teaching face-to-face. It is about creating communities.
I discovered that my greatest strength as a teacher in the classroom had to be transformed. I am able to “read” a class in a F2F setting quite readily much as a salesman sizes up a potential customer. Their body language always gives them away and that “thin slice” of information from the first few minutes of class always stood me in good stead. It should have been obvious that I would not have that rich vein of data in an online class, but it was still a shock to me.
I spent the better part of the year re-configuring my teaching style for this new and alien community of learners. Teaching a winter term literature course online helped accelerate the process by allowing me to, as Richard Saul Wurman puts it, “Fail faster.” This sounds bad, but it really wasn’t. I think of online teaching last year as similar to the hundred little mid-course corrections a pilot makes in the course of a flight. The passengers get to their destination, but rarely even know about all the changes.
But I knew I had to have a better plan this year. This summer I went to two professional development courses that helped in very concrete ways. The first was an online seminar via the Sloan Consortium (http://www.sloan-c.org/) titled “Workload Management Strategies for Online Educators”. This course has provided me with dozens of immediately useful techniques to help create that online community.
For example, my students always had a hard time gathering all of the assignments for the week into a clear view of what needed doing and when. I put the deadlines down in what I assumed was clear view and assumed it was their job to pull it together. Wrong.
That approach was not disastrous, but it was hardly seamless. I found out a simple approach at Sloan-C that solved the problem. I now create a simple chart, which students can print out and check off as they complete the assignments. These charts have the added benefit of providing an excellent way to plan content and to see at a glance what my week’s workload will be. As usual, what’s good for the student is good for the instructor.
The second PD course was Quality Matters’ (http://qualitymatters.org/) Online Course Peer Review Program. This one-day course made me realize that I was leaving out important, navigational and learner engagement tools out of my online course. I also was re-introduced to the continuous improvement model that is at the root of all creative dissatisfaction. The QM rubric was thorough and useful in helping me re-view my own course with student eyes. I plan to undergo a rigorous, format review of my Introduction to Literature class this spring so that I can become a reviewer myself at WKU.
English 300
English 300 has always been a bit of an enigma for me. I understand our departmental goals and I am happy to work toward them, but it always seemed there was something missing from my research emphasis. When I walked through the doors of our new computer lab, Room 102, I knew what it was—the Internet and its connected power. Even though I was using the same text and much the same syllabus, I felt it was a completely different course, much more relevant and useful to my students.
I began to emphasize new tools for old tasks. For example, I taught students how to gather information in new ways. I demonstrated how to use USB drives to make their information portable. Let me explain. The problem many university students have with gathering research information online is that the tools they have in one lab might not be the tools they have at home or somewhere else on campus. If students put the browser, Firefox, on their own USB drive, then they can add any number of useful tools to that browser which might not be available in our labs. Once installed these “extensions” can be used anywhere that your USB drive can be used. That means that hard won research travels with the student and can be added to anywhere.
I always taught the use of these tools within the context of English 300 and never felt that they stole time from the larger goals of the course. On the contrary, I know they increased my efficiency as well as theirs. At the same time we introduce them to tools they will be expected to know in their work worlds.
Many of these tools have odd sounding names—Bloglines, Zotero, Diigo, de.licio.us, Google Alert and Notebook—but their function is to increase the efficacy of student research, learning, and writing. It is a rare tool that enables us to do more and do it better in the same amount of time so I will likely use the tools more often not less often.
Conclusion
Last year was my third one teaching at Western. I feel that my world here is mostly mine to define. I appreciate that gift, but I never know when something new will re-order my place in that world. Take the new critical thinking initiative. I am finding many of the suggestions from Dr. Paul’s remarks working their way into my courses. I am beginning to respect group work more and am teaching it better. I know that this three-year initiative will prove invaluable to me personally and professionally. May we be cursed with interesting times? I can’t wait.
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
Thursday, December 06, 2007
Saturday, September 15, 2007
Test of Office 2007 Blog Posting
OK, Word. Show me what you can do.
This is the blogging tool in Office 2007.
Saturday, June 02, 2007
Friday, January 19, 2007
Tuesday, February 28, 2006
Thursday, November 24, 2005
Fun with Flipbooks
This is just plum fun. I think I will download the video of Bush's "failed exit strategy" in China for my first flipbook.
technorati tags: fun
Wednesday, November 23, 2005
Friday, October 07, 2005
Saturday, October 01, 2005
University Music Collections
Sunday, September 18, 2005
The Power of Words
The Power of Words: Flores is making a larger point about the real source of strength in business. "In the western mind, there are two notions of compassion," he explains. "One is, I'm going to be a good Samaritan and help this guy. But that is the compassion of the weak. The compassion of the strong is in waking people up to their blindness. For that, you need to be a warrior. I am tough and sweet. I show you your bullshit, but I'm also infinitely patient with you." Flores stands up very straight and addresses the group. "Know this," he announces. "We aren't aware of the amount of self-deception and self-limitation that we collect in our personalities. I'm fighting for freedom, for breadth of being. I want to open up people's moral imaginations -- which will give them a strategic advantage in business, in politics, and in their personal lives."
An amazing article that I am not quite sure how to take. You take a look and come back. Tell me what you think. I just can’t be sure if this is ugly truth or truly ugly.
A New Blogging Tool from FactoryCity--Flock
FactoryCity : “This design was fundamentally weak because it relied on an existing solution grafted onto an entirely different problem. Once I accepted the ambiguity of the situation—exacerbated by the numerous solutions available for blogging—I realized that what we needed was something that didn’t encourage the management of your blog, but rather the act of composing and creating.”
Designing a brand new tool to post to your weblog is an exercise in the imagination. Just as I am trying to create a community of practice with my weblog, LitTeach that is only a dreamed image, so too are these folks working on a new folksomonic tool. I surely do wish that I could do a beta test of this new Firefox extension posting tool. I have requested this, but I am doing a 30 minute major presentation on campus and would love to demonstrate posting with this tool. So… I cast another wish in a bottle to the Internet gods to grant.
Monday, September 05, 2005
TomDispatch - Tomgram: Iraq in America
TomDispatch - Tomgram: Iraq in America
“The one constant of this President and his administration is that their most essential impulse is never to head for the frontlines themselves -- not in war, not in disaster, not for our safety or our planet's safety, not even on the campaign trail. They are invariably at the front of nowhere at all, and more than happy to be there. The old "chickenhawk" label has a deeper meaning than we ever realized.”
Tom Englehart nails Bush to the wall, but will anyone in the mainstream take him down? Still waiting.
Saturday, September 03, 2005
Innovate - Places to Go: Apolyton
Innovate - Places to Go: Apolyton
What sites like Apolyton suggest, however, is that instead of embedding a game into learning, it is possible to embed learning into a game.
What Downes is writing about here is pure, plain and simple cooptation. Coopt the game paradigm to learn. Internally motivate and adapt existing gaming frameworks. That’s how you get around the “educational” and exogenous nature of most games created to teach.
Friday, September 02, 2005
online writing / writing online presentation | CultureCat
online writing / writing online presentation | CultureCat
Wonderful draft on weblog pedagogy. Nobody has all the pieces, but some folks are joining the many loose ones they are finding on the Internet to begin to make it work. Great work, Clancy Ratliff.
Saturday, August 27, 2005
Very Cool Things: Gakken Emile Berliner Gramophone Turntable [Model] Science Kits
Very Cool Things: Gakken Emile Berliner Gramophone Turntable [Model] Science Kits
What can one say to this? Oddball, but I do remember playing cardboard records as a kid from cereal boxes. Might be a cool way to get interesting sound effects for soundtracks of various kinds.
Tuesday, August 16, 2005
This is an experiment
(image placeholder)
Saturday, August 13, 2005
New Scientist Breaking News - HIV breakthrough raises hopes for a cure
New Scientist Breaking News - HIV breakthrough raises hopes for a cure
“Our findings suggest that eradication of established HIV infection may be achieved in a staged approach,” says Margolis. “This finding, though not definitive, suggests that new approaches will allow the cure of HIV in the future.”
Dare we raise our hopes for a cure? Damn straight we do! It says something about the state of AIDS affairs, that we begin to pin so much hope on the results of three patients, but…hope is the feathered thing.
Friday, August 12, 2005
Cellphone-based pollution sensor being developed at Berkeley - Engadget - www.engadget.com
Cellphone-based pollution sensor being developed at Berkeley - Engadget - www.engadget.com
A team at UC Berkeley is working on a platform to cram even more functionality into your cellphone, but this time instead of adding games, ringtones or other toys, the new functions will be planet-friendly tools like pollution and radiation detectors (hey, it is Berkeley, right?).
Cellphone+Ubiquity=Universality
Cellphone University anyone?
Innovation Weblog - Trends, resources, viewpoints from Chuck Frey at InnovationTools
Innovation Weblog - Trends, resources, viewpoints from Chuck Frey at InnovationTools
The habit of innovation at an individual level (personal brilliance) is the differentiator... The American worker for example is more expensive than others so they must determine how to create that much more value."
I know I have a habit of short posts to links, but it doesn’t bother me because I tend to respond to same. I know I need some longer posts and some essays online as well. This will do for now because it is a good topic to discuss with students—reality and the world of creativity. This notion of “personal brilliance” really is a touchstone, or perhaps it might be better described as the steel that sparks off my flint. (Don’t you have a hard head, too?) OK, I know these are, as my son is so fond of saying, “lame sauce”, but SBI (so be it).
Monday, August 01, 2005
Open Learning and Large Learning Objects (Courses)
Open Learning and Large Learning Objects (Courses)
…What's the point in getting certification if no HR guy or girl is looking at your CV anymore. It is more likely that you will have to show a record of clients, projects, artifacts etc. instead of Diplomas, Degrees, and so forth. Reputation is built differently in the part of a networked society that lives and operates outside of the big corporate business world.
A lesson to us all in how to make our “services” portable in both senses—easy to carry and easy to hook into.
Sunday, July 31, 2005
New Scientist Premium- Entering a dark age of innovation - Technology
Entering a dark age of innovation - Technology
It may seem like we are living in a technological nirvana, but the rate of technological innovation has been falling for 100 years, a new study reveals… according to a new analysis we are fast approaching a new dark age.
So… which is it Moore’s Law or the Dark Ages. Competing paradigms duke it out? Odds on favorite? I’m going with the new guy cuz I like the underdog. The article says we average seven innovations per billion people per year. Are we bumping up against patent office logic here where we get someone who just assumes that nothing more will be invented? I think that both of these paradigms are probably grossly wrong in many ways and subtly right in others. I especially love the assumption that innovation is a quantifiable and that it is a predictable quantifiable. Chaotically speaking, both of those hypotheses are unacceptable.
Thursday, July 28, 2005
Improv Visits the Office
Take a look at this and see if there isn't a valid analytical tool for the classroom. Tell me what you think and I will do the same.
Training + Development > Press > Performance of a Lifetime
Training + Development > Press > Performance of a Lifetime
Effective improvisation embraces several basic concepts:
• Pay attention and be present.
• Make your partner look good.
• Don’t censor yourself.
• Say, “Yes, and...” instead of “Yes, but....”
• Listen generously.
• Take risks and embrace failure.
• Say the obvious thing—in other words, the first thing that comes to mind. There are no wrong answers.
OK, readers few but fine, let us substitute “learning” for “improvisation” and then play out the rest of the quote. Does this fit? Partner=? Please comment briefly, addressing briefly and then perhaps suggest an implication or two that would arise from this substitution. Thanks. I use some improv principles in my teaching, but I need to reinvent myself as a “learner-who-just-happens-to-be-the-teacher”.
Monday, July 25, 2005
Saturday, July 16, 2005
Students Say High Schools Let Them Down - New York Times
Students Say High Schools Let Them Down - New York Times
Hmmmm….not hard enough for them, is it? Easily resolved then. I think students know something is wrong, but they are grabbing the wrong end of the stick. Perhaps that is a bit cryptic, but there is plenty of “blame” to go around if you want to play that game. I would rather point out that the system is broken and no amount of tinkering with it is going to make it better. You can’t “prepare” people unless you’re a cannibal. Schools are not humane and students know that. I need to see the questions that were asked and the sample of students before I can say more. I read the NYT regularly for the first time in my life last year as part of a freebie program at my university. I really wasn’t that impressed except for some notable exceptions on the editorial page. In fact I thought the reason Judith Miller was arrested was because of her horrific writing, not protecting “sources”.
Tuesday, July 12, 2005
{lime tree}: What Does Poetry Mean?
{lime tree}: What Does Poetry Mean?
There are contexts, obviously, when it is perfectly sensible to ask what a poem means. For a student reading Frost's "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening," it is quite reasonable to ask what Frost means by looking into the lovely, dark woods and then saying "But I have promises to keep / And miles to go before I sleep." It is also fairly easy to answer: he means that oblivion is tempting, but there are reponsibilities the living must honor. It is less easy to answer the question "What does the repetition of the phrase 'miles to go before I sleep' mean?" In fact, it may be a meaningless question. More on this later.
Thursday, July 07, 2005
Is there anybody out there"
Sometimes I feel like a radio station test broadcasting to folks who don’t know I am here. It is not a feeling of dismay, but rather one of being dismissed or ignored by all the adults in the room when all you want to do is tell them that the house is on fire. I can but sigh. OK, I am over it for now.
The Academy of American Poets - Poems for Weddings
The Academy of American Poets - Poems for Weddings
The epithalamium was employed as a literary form for the first time by Sappho, who wrote:
Raise up the roof-tree--
a wedding song!
High up, carpenters--
a wedding song!
The bridegroom is coming,
the equal of Ares,
much bigger than a big man.
It’s wedding season so go to poets.org and find some good wedding poems. I can imagine using this in a class. Assign different occasions to different groups and set them the task of designing a short anthology of poems with introductions to the poems. Let’s see: weddings, funerals, births, baptisms, bar and bat mitzvahs, graduations. Can anyone think of others? Break ups? I guess I could just go to the card store and check out categories.
Tuesday, July 05, 2005
Teaching, Wither Thou? I Think Not!
MIT OpenCourseWare | Master Course List
In itself an extraordinary attempt at knowledge management, MIT’s attempt to create “open” classrooms for all is democracy in learning. Check out this Intro to LitTheory. This all begs the question: what is the teacher for in this open source learning world? It is a central question that has attracted us all to teaching. I think that teaching is more like therapy than any of is quite willing to admit.
Tuesday, June 21, 2005
Lulu.com - Self Publishing - Free
Lulu.com - Self Publishing - Free
Time to get your students to publish in a book form. 8.50 for a 200 page book! Damn, I am in.
Monday, June 13, 2005
An Index to Creationist Claims
An Index to Creationist Claims
A rather … compulsive, but welcome approach to the creationist ideas in the marketplace these days along with responses to them. This would be an ideal approach as a wiki in the classroom where the claims are separate pages with a wiki and students have to approach them in writing, challenging them with their own writing and thinking. I might even use this myself in a freshman comp context. Plus, it’s nice to see the responses to the more ridiculous arguments, for example:
Claim CA006:
Evolution promotes eugenics.
Source:
DeWitt, David A. 2002. The dark side of evolution. http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs2002/0510eugenics.aspResponse:
- Eugenics is based on genetic principles that are independent of evolution. It is just as compatible with creationism, and in fact at least one young-earth creationist (William J. Tinkle) advocated eugenics and selective human breeding (Numbers 1992, 222-223).
- Many eugenics arguments, such as the expected effect of selective sterilization and the results of interracial mating, are based on bad biology. Better biology education, including the teaching of evolution, can only counter the assumptions on which eugenics is based.
Links:
Wilkins, John. 2000. Evolutionists against eugenics; Post of the month: November 2000. http://www.talkorigins.org/origins/postmonth/nov00.html
References:
- Numbers, Ronald L. 1992. The Creationists. New York: Knopf.
Sunday, June 12, 2005
War: Realities and Myths - by Chris Hedges
War: Realities and Myths - by Chris Hedges
"Force," Simon Weil wrote, "is as pitiless to the man who possess it, or thinks he does, as it is to his victim. The second it crushes; the first it intoxicates."
O, my God! Please read Chris Hedges on war. Please. I know this sounds like a hysterical fit, but I reading it right now and for the first time am feeling the horror of this permanent war. I can feel it and it makes me sick.
How to Save the World
Last week I had the rare opportunity to see 'behind the scenes' at Disney World in Florida. They understand the importance of attention, but they have a very different approach to it. It is the job of management to pay attention to the individuals who work for them, and to remove obstacles that prevent them from paying attention to individual customers. Decisions on what to do and what to pay attention to are governed by a simple set of ordered priorities: safety first, courtesy second, the show third, and efficiency fourth. So if someone if behaving recklessly on a ride, safety first, stop the show. And if a child is unhappy, pull out all the stops to cheer them up, even if that cuts into profits. These rules are invariable, and no employee can ever be criticized for following them.
Privacy and peace of mind and heart, all relative in our world today, but when we have almost none in our ordinary lives we become—-less than humane. Pollard comments in his usual, efficient, ordered way.
Saturday, June 11, 2005
IDEABOOK.COM: How to create a small booklet
IDEABOOK.COM: How to create a small booklet
If you like little zines and poetry books, let this rip. Publish folks, publish!
Spurious
Their wandering is blogging, if this means to mark one’s presence in time.
Blogging as a way to raise one’s leg on the world, the unsanctified, true, sidereal world.
Spurious: Rats
I want to be a rat, you say to yourself. But then you say: I despise all rats. In the library, you read books about apocalypse. The end is coming, you say to yourself. The end for all rats. But an image comes to you of a swarm of rats running across a blackened planet. Nothing will stop them, you think to yourself. Not even the apocalypse.
A grim and grimy grey vision of the universe that is probably closer to self-knowledge than most people dare to approach. I think I will read more of this guy.
Tuesday, June 07, 2005
Mezzy Anonymous Search Engine - Search Without Fear
Mezzy Anonymous Search Engine - Search Without Fear
Anonymous surfing anyone? I am sure there are legitimate reasons for surfing anon, but my imagination fails me 
Magnatune TunePlug
Ummm, buy your flashblum. No, that sounds fugly. How about this…flashalb, flalb, flashcd. Needless to say, the world is full of combinations and variations on combinations, that’s the nature of evolution, but it is happening so quickly it’s like a bad 3–d headset, makes you brainsick. Magnatunes’s reusable USB flash drive comes packed with ten albums. You can buy them here.
