A Vision of Students Today

This most recent product of Michael Wesch and Digital Ethnography prompted several negative responses from faculty members who may have felt indicted or threatened by what the students were saying.

Information R/evolution

This is the second of Michael Wesch's videos that I think is especially relevant to my interests in literacies, including information literacy, digital literacy, and multimodal literacy.

The Machine is Us/ing Us (Final Version)

I have been meaning to post this video, and two others by the same author, to this blog.

What Good Teachers Say

I was looking something up online and happened upon two sites that mean a lot to me. The first was the 826 National site, which I elected to add to my links on the right. That site is meaningful for several reasons, a few of which have to do with my roles and goals as a teacher of writing. One, however, has more to do with my personal history, which happens to include a prolonged stint as a beast of burden for a business just down the street from 826 Valenica, i.e., Harrington Brothers Moving and Storage.

The 826 link led to research Dave Eggers, and that led me to do a quick Web search for signs of the late Art Quinn, and that led me to a posting on Berkeley's Office of Educational Development website by Art about teaching. His brief statement on teaching included several tasty nuggets including this one regarding his preference for thin syllabi: "No schedule should be allowed to inhibit a fruitful line of inquiry."

I expect that I will be going back to Art's thoughts on teaching quite a bit now that I find myself in faculty development. I may also find myself at some 826 sites, as well, both virtual and physical. We shall see.

New Job, Fresh Start

I started this blog two years ago, and posted to it three times. Each time my purpose was to experiment with the technology, playing with RSS feeds and the like. Now, I may actually begin blogging here. Why now? Because I have changed jobs and may actually have not only time, but powerful incentives to get serious about the stated goal of this blog.

I used to direct two graduate programs, one in Instructional Design & Technology, and one in Digital Design. I now serve as the Associate Director of Faculty Development at Rider University. In that capacity, I am charged with promoting effective and innovative instruction by all faculty.

Included among them are the English Department faculty, the faculty in the College of Education, and in the Graduate School of Education. I will soon learn who among them might be interested in this project of mine.