poopy podcast

I've given it a run. My first ever podcast. I decided to use Gcast. No surprise there. The fact that I'm using Blogger should be evidence enough that I'm not very much into overhead when it comes to the technology I use on a relatively regular basis.

My hope is that I can use the podcasts to supplement the textual announcements I post (in Blackboard) during the semester. I've mentioned we've got a WRT 307 underway this summer. Most of the textual posts tend to be reactionary comments on what I'm seeing in the submitted work, or a general comment about that week's topics. My hope is that the podcast will fill in some of the blanks -- or at the very least, some of the compositional "stuff" that is difficult at best to relate textually, without going dissertationesque.

We'll see how it works out.

dancin' with myself

Roaming Collin's space... a funny point about blogging for an audience of one. Why is that funny? Well, it's not quite HA HA funny, just more of a "pause and think about it" kind of funny.

I used to journal a lot. Maybe too much. It started to tapper off after the boys were born. It came to a screeching halt when I started grad school. It turned into a forgotten outlet when I started bringing work home with me.

For all of the obvious reasons (covered ad naseum in millions of spaces), blogging scratches that itch for me. And while I do write with a general sense of audience, the target reader in my head is me. I've always written this way. I know serious writers would disagree (and there's plenty of composition theory to argue otherwise), but I write best when I write to myself.

"Mirror mirror..."

seedlings of change

The other night in WRT 307, we had a short discussion about the pace at which communication norms change in business. The bottom line: While certain genres retain specific structures and elements (the memorandum, for example, has not changed in 100 years), the style [loaded term] of the writing can, has, and will continue to change.

The conversation shifted to the range of writing styles that college students are asked to navigate. There are the informal modes (IM, blogging, Twitter, FaceBook, texting, etc.), the standardized academic modes, and the business/technical modes which they are entering.

There are a lot of considerations wrapped up here, such as changing learning styles and globalization. I did find this article more than tangentially related. I particularly liked the notes about how work tools need to mirror web tools.

It's why I love teaching professional and technical communication. Really.

marvelous sounds

Krista had a wonderful post about memorable sounds. How eclectic.

Late yesterday afternoon, when the backyard was buried in the shadow of the house, I heard the unmistakable "slap/smack" of a baseball hitting a glove. It was a regular pattern, occasionally interrupted by an errant throw no doubt. The interesting thing: The sound was one-sided. There wasn't a reciprocal slap/smack, as you'd hear during a game of catch. When I snuck a peek out the kitchen window, I saw D and S tossing a hardball. D was using one of the lacrosse sticks. S was using his glove. With the curiousness of the sound figured out, I settled in on the sight,which was plenty rewarding.

Maybe I'm getting mushy. Maybe they're growing up too fast. Maybe it's a lot of both.

blank spaces

We finished the first week of the limited residency WRT 307 on Friday night. I've mentioned before how much I like this format. The classroom sessions allow you to put a name to a face. More importantly for me, it allows us to clarify our expectations for the course.

The issue of expectations (what instructors expect of their students) comes up at every online faculty training session. It's like a bunch of old Italian mothers sitting around complaining about their son-in-laws. And when I mention to the gaggle that should also consider telling their students what they, in turn, should expect from their instructors, a short "Oh yeah" silence settles in the room.

I need to pick up some of the great work Coach Dan started here in regard to faculty training. It's an obvious opportunity to work in some the Quality Matters tools and design evaluation. At the very least, we could begin to formalize the Instructor Worksheet, may even making it required for anyone teaching a full online section for UC.

So much fun and good work to do.

It looks like a good 307 group this summer. I'm looking forward to seeing what we can come up with.

gotta make the donuts

5:30 - pop up like toast
5:45 - remind H what time it is
6:00 - downstairs, email, OJ, vitamin, H's harsh tarry-like coffee (which she loves)
6:05 - make sure D is up and in the shower. He's taking a Summer I bio - that's five days a week on campus
6:06 - toggle between Sports Center and Robin Meade (depending on what she's wearing)
6:30 - get S out of the sack for his 30 minutes "I'm a teenager" ritual
6:35 - empty the dishwasher
6:55 - finish making S's breakfast, watch D pace the room to make sure he has everything for class
7:00 - remind D to put gas in his car and drive safe
7:05 - serve S his breakfast, kiss H goodbye, and discuss diner plans as she flurries out the door
7:15 - clean up breakfast stuff, get S upstairs to brush his teeth and play with his hair
7:29.01 - remind S that the bus comes at 7:30
7:30 - ask S to make sure he has lunch money as he struts out the door

By the time I get to work most days, I feel like I've run five miles. The sad part: I would love to be able to run five miles. I know it gets easier. At least, that's what I was promised.

hope yet

S is thirteen. While driving him and a buddy to laser tag, I half-listened their animated discussion about the music they've recently placed on their ever-shrinking players.

I was pleasantly surprised to hear them mention a Scorpions standard. I was shocked when they started swapping Ramones titles. I almost stopped dead on the highway when I heard S say something about "it's just a shot away."

"How's the song go?"
"I don't know, it starts really slow, but gets wicked good when the girl starts singing."

Yeah, it gets wicked, wicked, wicked-assed good. I wanted to mention the steel guitar, but thought better of it. Why ruin their discovery.

When we got home, I fired up the laptop and took a look at S's play list. Sure enough, there was Gimme Shelter, wedged between a Panic at the Disco title and something by Linkin Park.

"Rock is dead they say..."

maybe a little clearer

A brief addendum to the earlier post (it's been something of a productive thinking/writing morning)...

Here are framing thoughts that I'll take into my review with my ever-energetic, but completely overworked dean:

• I need to better calculate our ROI in regard to technology. I need to look for measures of the investments will pay off. This will be difficult: In higher-ed, we want to make sure that every investment supports enrollment and retention. With part-time commuting students, this becomes difficult. Technology is not on their radar as something that influences their decision to attend UC.

• I need to work harder to align the goals of University College with those of the university. I need to explain to the University CIO the college’s issues and aspirations, and translate them in terms of what UC can do and what’s a realistic outcome for technology.
  

• I need to formalize a certification training path for at least one principle member of my team, and possible all who are interested.

• I need to increase the amount of time I talk to end-users. I need to meet with student representatives at least once per semester; I need to visit departments; break-down silos; and to set-up power users (champions) in the building. I need to regularly meet with department heads to learn if IT is doing a good job supporting their goals.

• I need to know what issues are worrying my boss.

• I need to better understand the academic and business aspects of higher-ed and align that with where the college (and the university) wants to be a decade from now.

little friends

It's a phone camera shot, so you can barely make out the huge heron perched on a fallen limb across the canal. I like to think it's the same heron I see there year after year. I know why he likes that side of the canal: there are always fish jumping, well out of reach of even my best and longest cast (which is never very far). The logs, limbs, and over-hanging vegetation make for a nice place to be a fish. One dry day this summer, I'll cross at the lock just east of this spot and make my way down through the brush. Heron are never wrong when it comes to fish.

blurred vision

I finished my leadership development workshop last Friday. Overall, it was a positive experience. I can't really say that I learned anything specific – anything that I feel like I didn’t already have some sense of. What it did do well was to articulate most of the things we might call “business acumen” in a context that exposed levels of importance.

So I got to thinking about leadership, my job, and how I can give myself a gut check on occasion, just to see if I’m doing what I’m supposed to do. From something of a removed perspective, I feel that my most import job is to make sure that the technology used on campus and in our college align with the goals (and vision) of the college. And this is where things have been tricky lately (which I think explains some of my frustration over the past few months): It’s no longer clear to me what the goals and vision of the college are. I can evaluate technologies and perform needs assessments until I’m blue in the face. But if the technologies and solutions I’m proposing don’t align with or support the college’s goals, I’m wasting my time.

I recently read a brief article on what it takes to be a great CIO in higher-ed. The bottom line: you have to understand your college’s academic and business requirements, and you have to know where your college (and in our case, the university) wants to be a decade from now. My challenge is to better understand these requirements, goals, and visions while still providing our staff, students, and faculty with a supportive and innovative computing environment.

I have a performance review coming up. This will be a topic of discussion.

you're lame now

Too much going on? I can find so many excuses. I remember reading some one's comments about blogging in which they were struggling to understand how they could think about all kinds of things to write about, but never find the time (or develop the discipline) to sit down and write.

Hell, a lame blog is better than no blog. I could go back to filling store-bought journals with bad poetry and lame short stories. OK, maybe they're not that lame.

I'm a little geeked up for the WRT 307 I'm teaching this summer. I absolutely love this course -- especially in the hybrid format (one week residence, the rest online). It's the first course that the SU WP offered me way back in 2001. And while it's similar to the ENG 218 I teach for JCC, the curriculum allows for more application of big R Rhetoric and little r rhetoric. I'm going try using the Blackboard virtual classroom for online office hours. I've instructed faculty for years in how to effectively use the tool, but I've never done it myself (those who teach....).

dependability

I had about 60 yards more to mow (that's going back and forth) before the wheel fell off. I finished the back yard on three wheels and some fancy one-wheel turning.

Five years ago, the little beauty cost me $99.00 at Home Depot. She's been dependable and true -- one pull and a start -- every year since. It's a surprising track record, considering that I found her completely submerged in the flooded shed (which sits too close to the back easement) a summer after I bought her. She sat upside down in pieces on the garage floor for about a week. Half a can of quick start spray and a prayer had her humming like her old self just in time for the first dry day of spring that year.

Because I'm so cheap, it's only fitting that the wire guide on the 13 year old electric weed whacker would also break on this very same day. Karma? Maybe. Or maybe a cosmic challenge to see if I can get my two old wounded warriors taped and bandaged for one more year -- or at least through next weekend.

whose literacies

Check out this recent statement adopted by the NCTE regarding 21st century literacies. Sound vaguely familiar? If you're a tech writer or have done anything remotely close to technical communication in the last 100 years, you'll note the eerie similarities among the literacies for readers and writers of the 21st century and those that have served tech writers from the birth of our identity-phobic discipline.

In 2002, Kelli Cargile Cook published an essay (Technical Communication Quarterly, v11 n1 p5-29 Win 2002) in which she imagined a framework for technical communication instruction based on six literacies: 1) Basic, 2) Rhetorical, 3) Social, 4) Technological, 5) Ethical, and 6) Critical. While Cook's focus was on a pedagogical framework, the outcomes of the objectives, lessons, and activities she imagined could and would quite cleanly align with the range of literacies adopted by the NCTE.

My point: Well, I don't necessarily think I'm trying to make one. It's the kind of inter-disciplinarity that I kept finding when I was preparing for my exams -- yes, the exams that I have yet to take. Regardless of my procrastination, the relationships across, through, and among disciplines is always intriguing and a bit reassuring... like maybe if someone else believes it, we surely can't be wrong.