I have written a bit on the idea of the Backward Syllabus on this site, and how I believe that a syllabus is something that evolves over the course of a semester vs being cast in stone at the start of a term. To that end, I thought people might be interested in seeing that(…)
The semester has begun and now, three weeks into it, I feel as if I can finally catch my breath and get back to writing about teaching. I had tried, and flailed, to keep up with Jim Groom and his band of merry pranksters and the #ds106 online storytelling course. I did what I could(…)
This entry is part 12 of 35 in the series Teaching Transparently [note: this post has been sitting in draft mode for far too long. Bryan and Jim: I apologize. Time got away from me, but now that I am gearing up — and panicking– about preparing my own anti-syllabus yet again for HISP 205,(…)
The last two or three weeks of a semester are hard. Teachers are making the big, final push to the end, covering those last little bits of the content and getting students ready for the final exam. Students are getting sick (or are just coming back from being sick), their brains are feeling bloated and(…)
Our friends Jim Groom and Martha Burtis are creating DS106…an online course for teaching exploring digital storytelling over at UMW. The course has not even started, and already several dozen people have accessed the assignments and have started playing around. Perfect timing, I’d say, for all of us who are somewhat burnt out from our(…)
Time for a confession: I watch Glee. And I love it. Yes, yes I know in real life they are all Broadway stars and/or adults playing people 20 years their junior. The plot lines are wildly improbable, it’s auto-tuned to the max, and hopelessly saccharine, but I don’t care. It’s a great way to pass(…)
Classes began here last Tuesday. On Monday the fotocopier was whizzing away, printing out syllabi at a mad clip (we have already had the repairman in once, sigh). Ah, the syllabi, that sacred road map for classes. Our “contract” with our students. Our promise to behave for our department. Our explanation (albeit sometimes not terribly(…)
The next few posts that will emerge on this blog will be from the NMC summer conference. I am one of three “live bloggers” that have been asked to write about the event. Those of you who know how I write know that the concept of “live” blogging, for me, is a bit of a(…)
This entry is part 14 of 35 in the series Teaching TransparentlyIt has been a busy spring, what with our infamous birds and a remarkably rough and tumble college admission process for my eldest son. My energies, needless to say, have been diverted away from this space. There has been a lot of chatter recently(…)
This semester some colleagues and I are putting together a series of presentations called TechnoTuesdays. I blogged about this previously and I am pleased to say that project has grown to include others on this campus who work in Ed tech, not just moi. I love looking at tools from the perspective of a teacher.(…)
This entry is part 19 of 35 in the series Teaching TransparentlyJust a note to sing the praises of two wonderful and simple tools for digital storytelling and to explain how they could be used in the language classroom. The first tool is Five Card Flickr Stories. People tag their fotos on Flickr with “5cardflickr”(…)
This entry is part 20 of 35 in the series Teaching Transparently In our shop we have WordPress MU installed and available for anyone (in the languages and elsewhere) who would like to use blogs for teaching. I am just now beginning to think of how I will use blogs in my “spring” semester class,(…)