Author Archives: jbj

On rules

Posted on April 7, 2009 by jbj

“Why Rules Matter,” Gary A. Olson’s “First Person” essay in the Chronicle this morning, surveys the comical sense of “rules for thee but none for me” that operates all too often on college campuses.  I’ll never forget standing in the … Continue reading →

Posted in academe, academic freedom, higher education | 1 Comment

Mozilla / Creative Commons Open Education Course

Posted on April 4, 2009 by jbj

This week marked the start of a very cool experiment in movement-building:an online seminar on open education, sponsored by Mozilla and Creative Commons. You can see the main page for the course–and most of the content–here: https://wiki.mozilla.org/Education/EduCourse/Outline.   It was organized … Continue reading →

Posted in higher education, humanities computing, mozopenedcourse | Comments Off on Mozilla / Creative Commons Open Education Course

The mini-interviews are back!

Posted on April 2, 2009 by jbj

I’m *very* pleased to say that this week marks the return of my posting mini-interviews, rather than only links, to Jessa Crispin’s Blog of a Bookslut.  There are more in the pipeline, too–including an exciting multimedia one! At any rate, … Continue reading →

Posted in books, interview, literature, poetry | Comments Off on The mini-interviews are back!

Victorian parody: Bulwer

Posted on March 30, 2009 by jbj

I want to post more regularly about Victorian topics, and thought that the best way to kick it off was with this satirical take from Fraser’s Magazine in 1832 on Edward Bulwer’s Eugene Aram (the end is worth it–how often … Continue reading →

Posted in Edward Bulwer Lytton, Victorian literature | Comments Off on Victorian parody: Bulwer

Learning from our public schools: What matters in evaluations

Posted on March 29, 2009 by jbj

So, this weekend we received a document with two forms: the teacher of the year nomination and a parent survey, largely about satisfaction with the school.  We’re pretty happy with the school, and very happy with the teacher, so no … Continue reading →

Posted in academe, assessment, higher education, new britain, public schools, silliness, teaching, things that should stop | Comments Off on Learning from our public schools: What matters in evaluations

Deploying the iPod Touch in a classroom

Posted on March 26, 2009 by jbj

Put the case that you were piloting the widespread deployment of iPod Touches in a classroom.  You can assume the following: Two sections of the same class will be taught in a 5-week period.  For the sake of argument–let’s call … Continue reading →

Posted in academe, higher education, iPod Touch, teaching | 17 Comments

Updates to two recent posts

Posted on March 25, 2009 by jbj

Two points that, while interesting, don’t quite merit their own entries: If you were interested in the recent post about online quizzes in lit classes, then you might be interested in this posting from Tomorrow’s Professor about crafting effective multiple … Continue reading →

Posted in academe, higher education | 2 Comments

Changing attitudes among students and faculty

Posted on March 23, 2009 by jbj

Earlier this month, UCLA reported on their triennial survey of faculty attitudes and values, “The American College Teacher.”  (Here’s the study; here’s the InsideHigherEd.com writeup.  Quotations below are from the latter.)  The above-the-fold news from the study was that faculty … Continue reading →

Posted in academe, higher education, teaching | Comments Off on Changing attitudes among students and faculty

A small proposal for (esp. junior) faculty

Posted on March 17, 2009 by jbj

Everyone in graduate school gets drilled into their head that they should be good to the department secretaries.  Department secretaries can accomplish all sorts of excellent things–they can expedite your travel paperwork, teach you the funky new copier, make sure … Continue reading →

Posted in higher education, teaching | 1 Comment

Satisficing & grading

Posted on March 16, 2009 by jbj

I’m slow with the grading.  Some of it is garden-variety procrastination; some of it is bad planning (assignments for different classes coming in at the same time); some of it is overcommitments elsewhere; some of it is figuring out the … Continue reading →

Posted in higher education, teaching | 4 Comments