Yuck, and yuck.

Looks like Lucas has contracted hand, foot, and mouth disease from other kids at daycare.

From the CDC website:

Hand, foot, and mouth disease (HFMD) is a common illness of infants and children. It is characterized by fever, sores in the mouth, and a rash with blisters. HFMD begins with a mild fever, poor appetite, malaise ("feeling sick"), and frequently a sore throat. One or 2 days after the fever begins, painful sores develop in the mouth. They begin as small red spots that blister and then often become ulcers. They are usually located on the tongue, gums, and inside of the cheeks. The skin rash develops over 1 to 2 days with flat or raised red spots, some with blisters. The rash does not itch, and it is usually located on the palms of the hands and soles of the feet. It may also appear on the buttocks. A person with HFMD may have only the rash or the mouth ulcers.

No sores yet, but a little rash, and definitely a lack of hunger and some low-grade fever. At least now we know why he hasn't been eating. . .

The virus apparently causes symptoms for 7-10 days. Grrrrrr.

Trying to slow down

I've been feeling less in need of the Internet lately, and more in need of paper and art and craft supplies. (OK, and maybe some good TV.)

It speaks to me of a need to slow down, to take better care of myself, my family, my friendships, and my surroundings.

Things I've noticed lately:

1a. Lucas is growing up so fast. I want to spend more time with him. His daycare providers describe him as "so gentle" and "very sensitive." I concur, and I want to help nurture his budding talents as an artist and his interest in music. I don't mean to be a pushy parent, mind you--he's not getting acoustic guitar lessons anytime soon--but I want to sit beside him as his right brain really kicks into gear, as it seems to be doing right now. Mr. Trillwing and I are both prone to depression--and have been since we were kids--so I'd like to see Lucas develop healthy, creative ways to express himself in case he inherits our mental and emotional proclivities.

1b. I need to spend more time with Mr. Trillwing. Even though he telecommutes from home, he works very, very, VERY long hours at a job that doesn't offer him, I think, a whole lot of creative satisfaction, even though it's the kind of job that in theory should offer exactly that kind of satisfaction. We don't get enough time to talk. And we need to talk. We're talkers, or at least we used to be. And we're creative types, and neither of us is finding enough time to create.

2. I like my job. A lot. I really like that I can (mostly) leave it at work. It lets me enjoy myself more at home.

3. #2 means more family time. It also means less dissertation/book revision time.

4. I still want to write, but I'd like to write a novel, as well as pull out the poems from my creative writing degree and revise them into a chapbook or book. But I feel I need to get the other book (the diss revision) out of the way first, so that I can start anew.

5. My desk area at home is a mess. I'm many months behind on filing, and papers are piling up again. I'd feel better if I were organized, and I'd probably be more productive, too. But I'm the one responsible for pretty much all paperwork--financial or otherwise--that passes through our lives, so the paper accrues very quickly.

6. I need to get back into better shape. I'm not feeling healthy. Bleah.

7. It's raining. I've missed the rain, as inconvenient as it can be for someone who's trying to be good about commuting to work on a bicycle.

8. My memory is shot. If I don't write something down, I forget about it--and even then my system of tracking action items isn't leak-proof. It's strange, and I'm not sure if it's because I care less than I used to about the things I'm supposed to be remembering, or if it's because I really am losing the ability to remember things.

9. We're making good progress on paying down the scary credit card debt. It may not be paid down as quickly as I had hoped, but we've reduced it by almost 50%, and by the end of January, we'll probably have reduced it by 70% from what it was in September. Of course, it could come back to bite us when taxes come due, as we're able to pay off this debt because we've each taken on some extra work this fall, not all of which has income taxes withheld.

What's been bothering you lately? What's keeping you from accomplishing what you want to do?

Got Fear 2.0?

If so, and you're in higher ed, we want to hear about it for an upcoming presentation at the EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative conference. You can e-mail your anxieties about using Web 2.0 technologies in education directly to me at trillwing at gmail dot com.

In addition, if you find (or author) a relevant blog post or web page, we'd love for you to draw our attention to it by tagging it "eli08fear" in del.icio.us. Pages tagged thusly are being aggregated on the "Got Fear?" blog created by the talented Martha Burtis. You should definitely go check out "Got Fear?" for some interesting reading.

Should profs podcast?

(Cross-posted at BlogHer)

This afternoon I sat in on a presentation by a vendor that supplies hardware and software that records college and university instructors' lectures. The software produces not only podcasts, but also enhanced podcasts (with slides) and videocasts. The packages the vendor offers come with many bells and whistles, and I was impressed that one of the reps has a Ph.D. in educational technology and offered to help the institution collect and analyze data on any services the university purchased.

At the same time, I've been working with some absolutely brilliant women bloggers on a presentation for the upcoming EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative conference. Our presentation abstract states, "Web 2.0 tools have the power to transform education. Such a transformation requires that faculty, students, and institutions take risks. With those risks comes fear, which is often unarticulated. How do you tackle this fear and make real change?"

My current fear and anxiety center around podcasts in higher education. And I'm not sure how to tackle it in ways that effect real change.

Why fear podcasting?

Why should I fear podcasting? After all, podcasts allow students to access lectures when they need them. If they learn best in the late evening, then why shouldn't they be able to watch a lecture after the instructor herself has gone to bed? Studies indicate that the availability of podcasts doesn't affect course attendance--students who would usually skip class still skip. In fact, it may be the most studious class participants who access the podcasts--they can review lecture material and fill in any gaps in their notes. In addition, students who are not fully proficient in the language of instruction can watch or listen to the lectures again to try to better translate sections they didn't understand in class.

As the vendors in today's presentation pointed out, some universities are making their faculty members' lectures available to the public, completely free of charge. One vendor rep talked quite a bit about building a university's brand through publicly accessible podcasts. Indeed, in the case of land grant universities, the institutions have a mandate to perform outreach to the public, and podcasts are a relatively inexpensive way to do so.

Plus, asking professors to videocast their lectures can make them better teachers. After all, the university teaching resources center where I work offers to videotape faculty in the classroom; we then sit down with each instructor to watch the videotape and consult with her about her teaching. If faculty watched their own videocasts, they could learn a lot about their own lecture style and presentation skills.

Today's college students, the vendors told us, have brains wired differently from ours. Specifically, they apparently don't have the attention span or discipline required to read books. And because they're always multitasking--even during lecture--it makes sense to provide them with a podcast they can review later to catch any details they missed while text messaging one another during class.

Plus, how much would I love to listen to podcasts of faculty at my own alma mater? I learned a lot there, and podcasts would not only help me learn, but also keep me connected to the institution--a bonus for the folks in alumni relations and development when they make their perennial appeals to me to contribute to the annual fund.

Podcasts don't address students' shortcomings as independent learners

Despite all these potential advantages to pod- and videocasting, I'm hesitant to advocate for these technologies in the classroom. I fear they will do more harm than good and will allow universities to cut corners in educating students.

First, I'm sick of hearing about "wired" students. They love cell phones and iPods and sometimes social networking sites like Facebook or MySpace, and yes, they always seem to be plugged in to some device or another. But they're not really tech savvy in ways that help them better understand the world in the ways undergraduates should. Most of my students--even seniors at my well-ranked research university--don't know how to use the library's vast electronic databases to undertake research. Nor do they understand how to even begin to search for information. Take, for example, the case of a graduate student in (let's say, for the sake of anonymity) gardening studies at a private university where I teach a seminar in gardening history. She was writing a paper on tulips, and yet into the library's search engine she typed "gardens." The entire library specializes in gardens, but it never occurred to her, until I pointed it out, that she might search for "tulips." Many of the other students in the seminar had similar difficulties undertaking research, and this is in what might be the nation's top "gardening studies" program.

Many U.S. university students also have difficulty assessing the authority of a web site; they have frequently cited to me something they learned in junior high school--that if a website's URL ends in .gov or .edu, then it's trustworthy. Um, yeah. I showed them government web sites that reflected the Bush administration's stance on sexual health. It takes a lot of hand-holding to get them to learn to analyze and evaluate sources.

And when, at a professor's request, I go into classrooms to interview undergraduate students about their course, students will say things like, "I wish he would stop asking us questions to which he already knows the answer. Just tell us the information. Just tell us the facts."

In other words: Don't make us do the readings. Don't make us think independently or critically.

Why podcasting is problematic

Which is where my beef with podcasting comes in.

Because most lecture rooms aren't wired with additional microphones for students, it's only the professor's contribution to the class that gets recorded. So even if the professor does try to engage the students with questions or small-group activities, the students' contributions to discussion usually won't be captured. And thus if a professor is going to record lectures "successfully"--meaning produce a video or audio recording with decent production values--he or she needs to stand within the view of the camera (some of the more expensive of which, admittedly, have motion detectors that can follow the professor) and lecture the entire time.

Very few students learn well from lectures alone, though unfortunately many students believe they learn well from lectures because they see themselves as vessels waiting to be filled with knowledge. At universities such as mine, this "knowledge" comprises the information required to perform well on a multiple-choice test or, more rarely, a paper--and in these students' view, hopefully one that doesn't require too much research outside of class.

By promoting podcasting and videocasting by providing easy-to-use services to professors, we're further reinforcing the idea that lecturing should be the default method of instructional delivery. And since the videocasting program offered by this vendor offers screen captures as well, the system also reinforces the too-frequently heinous use of PowerPoint by faculty who don't understand the cognitive style of PowerPoint.

Even worse: According to one vendor rep, some schools find it too inconvenient to establish an "opt-in" system for faculty who wish to have their lectures recorded, so they record everything that happens in the classroom during every class. And some institutions turn the cameras back on the students during exams to discourage cheating. This level of surveillance--of faculty and of students--disturbs me.

As universities take on ever-increasing numbers of students, they run out of classroom space. Accordingly, classes meet less frequently, and previously-recorded videocasts are being offered as an option to replace the missing class meetings. One student in the vendor's promotional video said that he likes the videocasts because "they're interactive." But they're not, except that the student can rewind or fast-forward through them.

Suggestions for videocasting and podcasting

Despite my reservations about the ways these technologies are being deployed in the classroom, it's clear they are, like course management systems, going to stick around for a while. So I have some suggestions for vendors.

First, if you're going to emphasize "social networking" sites in describing the mentality and learning styles of students today, then please actually include some social aspects in your platform. Allow students to tag video and audio and to search tags across videocasts at their university. If my professor's explanation of iambic pentameter doesn't make sense to me, I'd like to easily find videos of other profs explaining the same concept. If students in those other classes can tag or label their professors' videos by chapter, then I could easily search for other recorded explanations of Shakespeare's favorite meter.

Second, allow faculty and students to easily sample and/or mash up videos from a number of different classes. If I know one of my colleagues gives a killer lecture on the 1893 World's Fair, I want to be able to pull out his five-minute discussion of the enormous Ferris wheel and how its popularity reflects Americans' changing views of technology at the end of the nineteenth century. I could assign a viewing of his explanation as homework, to be completed alongside more traditional academic readings on the Fair. There--I've saved myself probably 10 minutes of stumbling through a Ferris wheel lecture, as well as a couple hours of research for lecture prep--and more importantly, I've gained 10 minutes of quality time with my students, time that I can spend interacting with them instead of talking at them.

Third, let me capture that quality time. Make it easy for me to record students who report back to the class after small-group discussion, without making them come to the front of the class, where they might feel alienated from their group and therefore intimidated.

Fourth, integrate into your platform technologies similar to that used by Voicethread so that students can add their own questions or commentary to lectures, either as audio or as text. Then encourage faculty users of your technology to respond to their newly annotated lectures. In other words, make your software truly interactive and social.

Fifth, work with my institution to come to an agreement that treats my lectures and course activities as my intellectual property and that lets me release the course session recordings under a Creative Commons license. As an adjunct, the last thing I need is to be recorded out of a job when the administration decides that it can reconstitute my course using only my syllabus and videocast lectures, using a low-paid T.A. to issue grades.

Your thoughts?

What do you think of podcasting in education? What are its advantages and liabilities?

White men singing

I can't seem to get enough of this song lately. Lucas has been asking to see a lot of Johnny Cash videos ("Gee-tar! Cash!"), and I'm a huge fan of Willie Nelson and especially Kris Kristofferson. I have to admit that while Waylon Jennings is fun, I'd rather see Merle Haggard in his role. . .

Anyhoo, here's a video of a live performance:



I especially like Johnny Cash as a starship pilot. Make it so, Mr. Cash.

Cutest dino-dragon ever

RAWR!

(I love the tail.)

No pants! No pants!

So. . . I've been taking these unexpected, but not too long, hiatuses. I've been reading blogs like crazy, but I just haven't felt much like writing, nor commenting. Feeling kind of wallflowerish, I guess. (Let's call it "reflective.")

I hope that means more posts are brewing--I think it does.

In the meantime, know that I'm OK, and I'm happy to see that so many of you are doing well, too.

And all that writing and editing I hoped to do this month? Yeah, it's not getting done. Lucas is especially cute right now,* and I can write any time, but he's only this age once.

I'll be back to blogging here soon.


*For example, tonight I had managed to wrestle him into the top of his Superman pajamas set, but he refused to wear the pants. So he took several laps around the house, the whole time yelling, "No pants! No pants!"

Looking beyond administrivia

I work in an office whose raison d'être is improving the teaching of undergraduates on campus. As part of that, we offer or oversee a couple of instructional programs, a graduate-level seminar on college teaching (which I'm teaching right now) and a first-year seminar program, taught by faculty from across the disciplines, that offers about 100 special-topic seminars each year. Because of this instructional mandate, we have a faculty director with a half-time appointment. This is the case with other offices on campus whose mandate includes undergraduate instruction.

I consider myself extremely fortunate to have come into my job under our current faculty director. Much as I learned about what it means to be a savvy academic and a productive intellectual from Fantastic Mentor, I'm learning so very much about administration from Professor Thoughtful.

We're a very small unit (the equivalent of 6 FTE, plus several graduate student researchers and graduate TA consultants), so when one of our administrative people gave notice yesterday that she'd be leaving us for another unit, I of course immediately thought, "Who the hell are we going to get to replace her? She's terrific!" But today Professor Thoughtful pulled me and my coworker with my same job title (let's call her The Ecologist) into his office and proposed about 30 different ways to reorganize our little unit so that it both functions more efficiently and allows us to collaborate more meaningfully with several other academic departments and administrative units. Obviously, he's been thinking about this reorganization for some time, but literally overnight he came up with all these different reorganization plans, each of which is thoughtful in its own way.

I can't blog about the specifics because what we saw was apparently For Our Eyes Only, but I so much appreciate being included in these discussions, both because I want to have a hand in the reconstruction of the unit and because I really enjoy watching Professor Thoughtful at work. Plus, he very much listens to The Ecologist and me, and I feel he takes our concerns and recommendations to heart.

He also told us that he sees the two of us as the "franchise players" of the unit--and then he had to explain what he meant by that sports metaphor. It's good to know he recognizes our commitment and special skills, and that he wants to provide us with more opportunities to develop professionally. That may mean promotions and a higher salary, or it may not, but regardless of what happens, I'm delighted to be part of this organization.

I read a lot of griping about academia (and have done plenty of it myself), and I wish more academics who are getting the institutional shaft would consider transitioning into positions like mine. There's a huge need, especially at an institution the size of mine, for creative thinkers who not only "think outside the box" but refuse to think about boxes at all.

Smart little poop

CAUTION: This post contains mother-of-toddler poop talk. Read at your own risk.

Today we began toilet training Lucas, albeit with no forethought or real strategy in mind. He's two years and two months old, and all the books say this is about the time to start training.

I saw him grunting during breakfast and put him, fully clothed and diapered, on the potty. He sat there until he was done and then asked to be changed. For the first time ever, he used the word "diaper," totally without prompting.

Usually he poops once a day. After pooping on the potty today, he returned to it twice to poop again. He even threw in a gratuitious non-potty poop for old time's sake.

He must think this is a fun game. I'm not going to be happy, however, if he decides it's fine and dandy to poop four times a day from here on out, especially since I must tend to his modern-day chamber pot. Not cool.

He's going to kill me if this post is still online six or seven years from now.

Feel free to leave toilet-training tips in the comments.

Clearing the decks

Well, I've signed up to participate in International acaDemic Writing Month (InaDWriMo). I've pledged to revise an article that's been sitting around too long, as well as substantively copyedit my dissertation, as well as set up a time to go to an archive that very soon will be moving to a less accessible location. As a bonus, I may finish a book review that I managed to blow off because I've been a slacker a busy mother and 8-to-5 employee.

But before I begin work on those things, I need to spend this weekend clearing the decks--quite literally, as I need horizontal space on which to work. My to-do list:

• Clean bill-paying stuff and other papers from dining room table. That means finishing paying the bills, of course. . . misc. papers cleared (by moving them to my desk)!
  
• Clear off craft table in kitchen. done!
  
• Clear papers off my desk.
  
• Polish off overdue (ouch) work for freelance client.
• Do museum studies reading and prep for class.
  
• Grade museum studies seminar papers.

Those are the primary must-dos. Other possible distractions that should be done this weekend:

• Catch up on folding laundry.
• Vacuum.
• Clean kitchen floor.
• Dust living room.

What about you? What's on your mind (or your dining room table) that's keeping you from being productive?