What could I do with a Raspberry Pi

I don’t own a motorbike: https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?t=1216528 – so getting data via a OBD2 Data Recorder isn’t interesting to me. Since I need to improve/refresh my programming skills, I could use it for PHP or Python. Ruby is on the way down the list {TIOBE programming list https://www.tiobe.com/index.php/content/paperinfo/tpci/index.html } The TIOBE list tracks Turing complete programming […]

Why you have to be there

I recently read an advertisement for a large conference for educators. There were seven items stressed under the heading, “Why you have to be there.” The one that caught my eye was, “Rub Elbows with Thought Leaders.” Intriguing. It made me think about our designers, and our eCampus team. You don’t have to sign up […]

Building blocks

UAF eCampus Registration page(s): what needs to change? A person should not have to choose “number of courses. … How many classes? I plan on taking _one semester-based course_ … two, three, four. A person should not have to   “If you change your mind, use the back button and select more or fewer courses […]

English is so tricky!

I’ve had the pleasure of working with a few amazing instructors over the past year. Carl Strange teaches Latin 101 and 102. He writes the best announcements to encourage his students, tell them what’s coming up, and keep them interested in learning more. I’m excerpting part of last week’s announcement, with his permission, because we […]

Everyone is at a difference place

The great continuum of learning is like the largest airliner in the sky. There are seats for everyone, and we are all on our own journey. Today I was able to walk a long-time professor through how to make PDFs. We were both ecstatic!   Another professor and I had fun with both Jing and […]

Tweeting about education

Taking a cue from Design Team Manager, Chris Lott, I’m listing some of my favorite tweets on education. He posts monthly – I just don’t tweet anywhere near that much! Here are the first and second quarters of 2012. Look for me on Twitter @alaska_knits … I removed all knitting and cookie related posts from […]

Top 10 Blogs for Educators

Ellen M's phone photo from Flickr creative commons

https://theinnovativeeducator.blogspot.com/2012/03/top-10-technology-blogs-for-education.html lists the top ten blogs for education. Many of the folk who read my blog (Design Team members) will be familiar with all ten of these blogs. However, this post is for the folk who stumble across my blog. If you’re looking for good ideas, sometimes the best thing I can do is point […]

More on passive voice

I’ve often been a naysayer. I choose to excise passive in almost every case. However, it could be because I’ve been led down the wrong path. Alas! https://chronicle.com/article/50-Years-of-Stupid-Grammar/25497 I’ve known for years that I need to spruce up my grammar. I’ve held stubbornly to the concept that passive is harder to read. There is much […]

Mendeley and more

At the Center for Distance Education, we have a reading group. We use Mendeley (https://www.mendeley.com) to corral materials. Even the proudest designer or highest ranking techie needs a how-to. These are my notes because I was so tech-whelmed last week, I did not get into Mendeley to tell staff what I would be covering today. […]

Light reading

Mountains near the Yukon

https://www.npr.org/2011/02/09/133310978/in-college-a-lack-of-rigor-leaves-students-adrift Or light listening… Last week I enjoyed listening to NPR on my laptop, vs light music. What’s the photo got to do with the book? Nothing really. Unless you count a desolate, alone feeling that the first two paragraphs bring to mind. Let’s not fail our youth. Let’s not fail our country.

Finding your voice

As a teacher or an instructor it is important to know your audience and know yourself. As a new employee it can be a little more difficult to ‘find your voice.’ I’d argue that Toastmasters is an excellent resource for any employee (or person) to become a better speaker, a better listener, to practice how […]

On task (not project management)

Being asked to see what the individuals who make up the Design group are using to track projects or tasks is a great introduction to the team. Using SurveyMonkey allows for a quick Q&A. I will enhance/follow-up with one-on-one discussions. I’ll be intermixing survey results and on-on-one sessions to determine what the team might need […]

day 3

Certainly I will not have day 3, day 17, day 293… I’d have to write a script for that. Instead you’ll see a, 2, finally–but only if I’m feeling disjointed. What’s a brand new designer to do? link checking find all the resources she will need to do her job begin collecting work Cross-polinate? Absolutely. […]