Classes

What was I thinking??

It looked like this semester would be really light on work. After all, I'd lost my COS class and one at Reedley was threatened because of CA's economy. Then I only had one class scheduled by DeVry. Rather than fussing about not having a full schedule, I decided it would be a great time to take a drawing class.

After registering and paying for the class, I learned both Reedley sections would make and DeVry asked me to teach another class. That's great, but it now means I'll be up to my eyeballs in busy this fall. Still, taking a drawing class should enhance not only the classes I teach but also my personal life, so busy seems like a good thing.

I've been having some problems with some of the resources I've been creating for my Reedley classes. I really hate trying to figure out the technical snafus, but the process must go on. Unfortunately, these problems have really slowed my prep, so I won't have everything ready at the beginning of the class.

That's another of those "what were you thinking" things. I never should have decided to completely revise a course so close to the time it had to be taught again. There are always bugs to be worked out when doing a major overhaul, and I do know better. Still...

Composition of Housekeeping

Audience
- Most loved ones = They forgive when yet another project intrudes before cleaning.
- General visitor = Uh oh. Better dust the sitting room at least. Maybe low lighting would be enough.
- Dinner guests = Better get the stains off all countertops and see if those wicked no-see-um flies can be kept at bay for at least a few hours.
- Overnight guests = Uh... kitchen, bedroom, bathrooms, and shove as much as possible in closets and drawers; close office door.

Purpose
- Go to work = Kick the biggest stuff aside on the way from the bed to the bath to the office.
- Cook = Locate the kitchen and use its phone to dial take out.

Detail
- When does "dust bunny" become the furry crud-ball that consumes Cleveland, TN?
- When do windows become foggy apertures that beckon one to daydream?

Why is it that housecleaning is like a never-ending English 1 class of essay after essay on the same subject???

Okay... enough of this, I need to go finish the kitchen floor.

Eeek!

Classes start in less than two weeks, and I'm still only half done with prep. Looks like I'll be putting in some long hours over the next few days. Fortunately there's a lot of egregiously fallacious reasoning going on, so there's plenty of text to examine in the classes!

Check out Stephen Colbert's lampooning of Orly Taitz. Her arguments against Obama's right to serve as president are nothing short of legendary for their refusal to recognize fact over fiction.



Asked how announcements of Obama's birth could be published in Hawaiian newspapers 48 years before they would be needed to fabricate a US birth for his presidency bid, Taitz had some difficulty explaining... What sort of fallacies are in this clip?

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Why I teach online...

Gotta love this guy. He even sounds like Elvis. :)

Download Argunet from SourceForge.net

Argunet is an open source product for creating argument maps. Download Argunet from SourceForge.net

An argument mapping tool I like even better is DebateGraph (http://debategraph.org/). It's online, collaborative, and sophisticated.

Modal Windows

Was trying to figure out how to make those small pop-up text boxes so I could add definitions to some pages when I ran across this blog message

http://blog.feedmarker.com/2006/02/12/how-to-make-better-modal-windows-with-lightbox/

Didn't even know they were called "modal windows". SO much to learn.

Gathering Resources

While mentoring the PBWorks Summer Camp I've been gathering various tools that can be used in developing course materials and activities, as well as by students in team projects. The list is under Cool Tools. I try to choose those that are free, but some of them may have paid versions available, too.