Cloud AtlasI highly recommend Dreamhost.
This is the third in a four-part blog series taking a snapshot of the current economic, political, and grammatological situation facing the modern American university system. In part one, I provided a preface for this discussion. Parts two, three, and four focus specifically on pressures from different quarters challenging us to re-imagine what it is [… Read More]
This is the second in a four-part blog series taking a snapshot of the current economic, political, and grammatological situation facing the modern American university system. In part one, I provided a preface for this discussion. Parts two, three, and four focus specifically on pressures from different quarters challenging us to re-imagine what it is [… Read More]
This is the first in a four-part blog series taking a snapshot of the current economic, political, and grammatological situation facing the modern American university system. In parts two, three, and four, I will focus specifically on pressures from different quarters challenging us to re-imagine what it is we do. This part serves as a [… Read More]
Grading grading grading grading grading grading grading. Grading grading. Grading. Grading. Grading grading grading.
RadioLab’s recent short, TJ and Dave, focuses on two actors whose show consists of a 50-minute improvisation with no groundwork set to start it. Here’s the story, in case you think it sounds neat. As they talked about the experience, the actors discuss the joy of being in the place, of letting the work guide [… Read More]
I’ve seen this from both sides within the last few days. I’ll use my own example as the “questioner” and let you extrapolate. When you email someone about a problem to be solved, you should include enough information that an additional exchange of emails is not necessary. Here’s my example: Situation: After Avery’s Girl Scout [… Read More]
The first day of Spring semester went well. I think I managed to bring the right level of enthusiasm and interest to the class while simultaneously doing enough intellectual work on the first day to develop an idea for the students of what we’ll do in the course. A few words about my teaching persona: [… Read More]
A couple interesting pieces about white privilege have come across my transom in the last couple days. First, “Why I left the GOP” by Jeremiah Goulka, a former RAND fellow and lifelong Republican talks about how his experiences with the world outside his own comfort bubble and usual circles upset his worldview so much that [… Read More]
I’m teaching three classes this semester, Writing for New Media, Detective Fiction, and Game Culture. This is going to be a rollicking good time. Here are the books we’re reading. New Media The Medium is the Massage by Marshall McLuhan and Quentin Fiore Ginko Press ISBN: 1584230703 (link to Amazon) Cognitive Surplus by Clay Shirky [… Read More]
Just a few quick notes about my current thinking on plagiarism. I have scholarly friends (writing teachers, obviously) who spend a lot of time thinking about how we writing teachers talk about plagiarism. Some people make plagiarism into a kind of cat-and-mouse game, approaching it with the warning that students shouldn’t plagiarize, or I’ll catch [… Read More]
One of the more difficult things about teaching is knowing whether you’ve done a good job or not. When you teach a college course, you have students in your orbit for 15 or 16 weeks. You can tell, on a given day, whether things went well or not. You can tell, when they turn in [… Read More]
How Technology Makes Consumers into Collaborators by Clay Shirky Shirky writes in a smart, accessible way about trends in the digital era. I’ve used both Here Comes Everybody and Cognitive Surplus in my Writing for New Media courses, both to great acclaim. Cognitive Surplus engages with the question of what we do with all this [… Read More]
Of course, knee deep in my current academic project, I look ahead to the next ones. Aside from a couple ideas for books, I’m interested in thinking through ways to experiment with the massively online education course stuff. I’m pretty sure I could get a grant from my school to develop something about this next [… Read More]
Continuing my discussion from the other day, I’d like to write for a moment about my de-brief day. At the end of each course, I hold a discussion about how the course went. I usually start with the same battery of questions, and ask follow ups to elicit better advice. Here are my usual questions: [… Read More]
During the ‘de-brief’ session at the end of my Writing for New Media course this semester, one of my students said something to this effect, in response to a question about what worked in the course: I really liked that we watched The Game while we were preparing for the ARG project. I think it [… Read More]