Poet Ponders the Digital

Yesterday, I defended my doctoral dissertation and paid the last $120 in fees to the University of Minnesota. For the cost of tuition, they really should include the dissertation filing, even though the money is technically paid to a private publisher. Here is a portion of the "ETD" report you receive after submitting the final project: Print Date : 05-12-2010 _____________________________________________________ Campus : University of Minnesota, Twin Cities Program : Graduate School Plan : Rhetoric/Sci/Tech Comm Ph D Major Degree Sought : Doctor of Philosophy Plan : Supporting Program Minor Dissertation: Online Pedagogy: Designing Writing Courses for Students with Autism Spectrum Disorders Dissertation / Final Research Categories ______________________________________________________ 736 : Speech & Rhetorical Studies 810 : Educational/Instructional Media Design 835 : Special Education 864 : English Education It is comple...

I recorded grades and the end is near. The last day of class was May 4… teaching is over for me, for now. The future isn't clear, yet, but it appears I won't be teaching next year and maybe for a few years to come. I'm not sure I'll have much of anything to say about teaching and technology, but you never know. I do leave thinking Moodle is much better than Blackboard's alternatives. Moodle was a much better experience, overall. The gradebook, forums, wiki, and other features were fantastic. Maybe I'll be teaching again sooner than I anticipate. In the meantime, I'll be writing away.

Visalia Direct: Virtual Valley June 2010 Issue May 1, 2010 The Trails We Leave Behind Your “tweets” are about to be stored — forever, or as close to forever as data get. The Library of Congress has announced a plan to archive all public Twitter posts, indefinitely. If you use the microblogging service Twitter, this means at least some of your random thoughts are destined for a massive database. The Library of Congress announced on April 14, 2010, that every Twitter message since 2006 will be archived for historians and other scholars to study. Some compare this to being able to read the conversations of “average people” from any time in history. In ancient Roman colonies, messages were left on shards of pottery. From those shards, archeologists have such mundane items as shopping lists. Having bits of daily life allow us to see beyond the lives of famous and powerful individuals. Sometimes, we forget that messages can be forwarded from one friend to another. We also forge...