This post is the second in my syllabus/course development series. The intro is here. Creating a course from scratch is paralyzing. There’s just so much to figure out: readings, assignments, format, and it all interconnects. A good course setup is a balancing act that takes years to really master. One mistake I think is widespread … Read moreThe cart before the horse
Winter break is over, the semester is underway, and the winter doldrums have set in. It’s long past time I get back to this blog. I’ve been mulling ideas of what to discuss but much of it is too depressing (the news) too self-aggrandizing (I replaced the screen on my iPhone all by myself!) or … Read moreSyllabus (de)constructed
A few weeks ago, I got an email saying the Simpson Library will be culling its art-related collection (everything in the Ns), and went there to see which books I thought should stay. When I got there, I saw many more books with the “marked for culling” white slips than I had expected. I madly … Read moreHunting and gathering in the stacks
* This is the French version of “have your cake and eat it, too”. I like it better. More snooty, of course, but also easier to understand. It means “to have the butter and money from (selling) the butter” My zealotry to lose piles of unwanted paper can easily be confused for an anti-paper stance. … Read moreLe beurre et l’argent du beurre*
My mom has instilled in me the need to sit down before every trip to make a wish. We’ve been doing it since my earliest memories, and I’ve started doing the same with my kid. This is coming to mind because today is move-in day at UMW and the academic year is about to start. … Read moreHere we go…
I’m not exactly the patient type, so after last week’s rant I decided to do something about my cloud storage/filing conundrum. First, I needed to brainstorm, and lucky for me Ryan Brazell came over for dinner and very graciously let me bore him to death. Then, I looked at many, many reviews and finally pulled … Read moreImpatience and clouds
I know this is the very definition of #firstworldproblems but I would like to vent, and this is my blog. So… Back in the dark ages when OS9 was the new hotness, I sat down with a computer science nerd friend of mine, and we talked about file organization. In particular, he excoriated me for … Read morePlease string the world’s smallest violin
Pictures are worth a thousand words Also: tl;dr Also also: videos I’m all for a good read, but let’s be honest: pretty often, you just need to learn a skill or follow steps or something. And then, the instructions being written isn’t actually a good thing. It’s boring, and doesn’t necessarily emphasize the important parts. … Read moreSome ‘splaining tools explained
Almost twenty years ago, I saw my first Sanborn map. In the years since, I’ve used these maps for work in all sorts of contexts, and I keep coming back to how beautiful they are. They show the information they were meant for – assessing risk for fire insurance – but also so much more. … Read moreI ♥ Maps
Playing for work, it turns out, is both rewarding and completely exhausting. I found this out first-hand after a double dose of games workshops this week. First, I attended the “level up” workshop which focused on Aris, an open-source iOS game generator. I got to develop a game in a team with other profs. Our … Read moreGames Games Games