Last week I spent two full days in sessions of the University Teaching Project in preparation for a new partnership at William and Mary focused on using the best combination of traditional and emerging technologies available to broaden and deepen the conversation about excellent teaching. IT’s academic information services staff will be working closely with…
Recent News
Starting with the Big Questions
Saint Richard (Dick) Bolles, author of What Color is Your Parachute and founder of the concept of “life-work designing” suggests that one key step in preparing for an uncertain future is to sit down at the end of each week and answer one fundamental question: “what have I done this week that added more value…
Words You’d Rather Not Hear
All of us have certain words we’d rather not hear: “Hi Dad, I’m using my one phone call…” “I think it’s important that you get to the cardiologist’s office this afternoon…” “Um, about that money you invested with Bernie Madoff….” I’ve added the following: “I gave him the url to your blog….” I still believe…
Question of the Week
The architects need to cut 3000 square feet out of the proposed plan for the Arts Center. Currently, there are 1800 square feet set aside for a music library and a visual resources library. In our discussions so far, we’ve been pretty confident that within the six year planning horizon the technology will allow all…
New Tools for Political Scholars
Google Earth: Platform for Academic Scholarship? This report was included in today’s Wired News from the Chronicle of Higher Education. The University of Richmond’s Digital Scholarship Lab, home of William and Mary’s own Rob Nelson, has produced a powerful tool to provide new insights into historical voting data. Earlier this year scholars at the University…
It’s the Network Stupid
Technology Review: How Obama Really Did It In 1992, Carville said, ‘It’s the economy, stupid,’” Trippi says, recalling the exhortation of Bill Clinton’s campaign manager, James Carville. “This year, it was the network, stupid! You have an entire generation of folks under age 25 no longer using e-mails, not even using Facebook; a majority are…
Yammering Away
We’ve started a an impromptu experiment with a new application to foster additional communication and awareness within our group. During one of my Arc Trainer sessions last week, I was listening to a TWIT podcast and heard that a program called Yammer was the winner of the “Techcrunch 50”. Later that afternoon, I began my…
Starting Though The Dogpile
One of the notes that I found in my dogpile was a folded index card from the now-defunct Seminars in Academic Computing. I participated in a discussion with a group of colleagues on the topic of What Do Faculty Expect From Higher Ed. IT? The discussion was described in the program: Traditionally faculty have needed…
Through the Dogpile
Speaking of Scott Nelson….. I was on a task force studying digital imaging with Scott and he often talked about the value of of a “digital dogpile” as a collection of high quality images that could be freely accessible to members of the community who needed them to enhance communications. The reference generally made me…
Faculty Blogging: My Beat
Back when I was in journalism school–writing my stories for Daily Texan on a IBM Selectric–everyone was expected to develop a “beat“. Your beat might be the night court and police station, the athletic complex, the theaters, or some other part of the institution that you knew better anyone else in the newsroom. Your goal…