Some folks treat conference attendance as an art form. A former colleague of mine used to spend weeks preparing for the American Psychological Association annual meeting–scoping out the speakers, planning the dining and recreation agenda, figuring out what folks he wanted to make contact with. He described his behavior at the conference: I’m the type…
Month: January 2008
Twittering My Way to ELI
I’ve been a Twitter lurker ever since the University of Mary Washington Faculty Academy this last summer. Lately I’ve been watching Laura and Barbara and a few others chronicle their progress in preparing for the ELI Annual Meeting and my anticipation has grown every day that I’ve seen how hard they’ve worked to get ready….
A Glimpse into the Educative Power of Community
Gardner Writes » Blog Archive » Techfoot’s back on the bull’s eye: Hamilton College Career Center Philosophy Twenty years ago I wrote the first draft of this philosophy statement. Glad to see it’s still there. I appreciate Gardner’s kind words about my renewed attention to my blog and his comments on missed opportunities for integrating…
How Good is Good Enough?
Are You as Good a Teacher as You Think? One of the hardest parts about most of our work in academic technology is trying to figure out how to evaluate our progress. Every workshop could be tweaked to be just a little better. Every web site could be made a little more user friendly. Every…
Understanding Students’ Experience
Center of Inquiry in the Liberal Arts – A Neglected Necessity in Liberal Arts Assessment: The Student as the Unit of Analysis Dan Chambliss, a former colleague of mine at Hamilton, has written a valuable article for the Center for Inquiry in the Liberal Arts. The article reminds us of the difference between the way…
All-You-Can-Eat Music Services Revisited
The student government negotiated a deal with Ruckus last semester for the college to run an on-campus music server. I was (am) a little skeptical that much will come of it since the rights management system used to protect the music is incompatible with the iPod. At least 90% if the students I see at…
Open Notebook Science
Science 2.0: Great New Tool, or Great Risk?: Scientific American M. Mitchell Waldrop’s excellent introduction to “open notebook” science in Scientific American fits nicely with some of the work we’re doing to support the Charles Center’s initiative on expanding undergraduate research at the College. My class last semester helped plan a web site that will…
Finding Focus
Last year at this time, I launched a little experiment. I set aside the amount of time that I normally would spend taking or teaching a class–about 10 hours a week for 15 weeks–to see how much I could improve my overall fitness. The results were pretty gratifying–I dropped my BMI (the dreaded body mass…
Welcome to the New Semester
Gardner Writes >> My New Year’s Blogging Resolutions I love to walk around the campus on the first day of the new semester. From the snippets of conversation it’s obvious that many students have a genuine sense of excitement about the new things they’ll learn, the books they’ll be reading and the people that they’ll…