For years—like ever since I started blogging in 2003 or so—I've wanted to include a link blog on this site. You know, one of those side bars that just has cool links. Back in the day, Andy Baio's link blog was my jam, something I often paid more attention to than his main blog. It looks… Continue reading A Link Blog, Finally
Tag: blogging
What about Blogging Keeps Me from Blogging
Yesterday in Facebook Killed the Feed I highlighted the way Facebook and Twitter have contributed to the decline of scholarly blogging. In truth though, those specific platforms can't take all the blame. There are other reasons why academic bloggers have stopped blogging. There are systemic problems, like lack of time in our ever more harried… Continue reading What about Blogging Keeps Me from Blogging
Facebook Killed the Feed
There's a movement to reclaim blogging as a vibrant, vital space in academia. Dan Cohen, Kathleen Fitzpatrick, and Alan Jacobs have written about their renewed efforts to have smart exchanges of ideas take place on blogs of their own. Rather than taking place on, say Twitter, where well-intentioned discussions are easily derailed by trolls, bots,… Continue reading Facebook Killed the Feed
Password Protecting PDFs on Course Blogs
This is a quick note to myself, so I remember the best way to protect PDFs behind a password on a course blog. Joe Ugoretz highlights the problems with most methods, and then proposes the solution I'm using here: Ben Balter's WP Document Revisions plugin. There are a few tricks involved to get WP Document… Continue reading Password Protecting PDFs on Course Blogs
Serial Concentration is Deep Concentration
A Chronicle of Higher Ed column by the former Idaho State University provost and official Stanley Fish biographer Gary Olson has been making waves this weekend. Entitled “How Not to Reform Humanities Scholarship,” Olson’s column is really about scholarly publishing, not scholarship itself. Or maybe not. I don’t know. Olson conflates so many issues and misrepresents so many points of view that it’s difficult to tease out a single coherent argument, other than a misplaced resistance to technological and institutional change. Nonetheless, I want to call attention to a troubling generalization that Olson is certainly not the first to make.
Followup to the Ever-Expanding Classroom Discussion
Last week I was a guest of the Davidson College Teaching Discussion Group, where I was invited to talk about my pedagogical strategies for teaching large classes. I mostly focused on how I use technology to preserve what I value most about teaching smaller classes. But many of the technique I discussed are equally applicable… Continue reading Followup to the Ever-Expanding Classroom Discussion
Twitter is a Happening, to which I am Returning
I quit Twitter. Or, more accurately, I quit twittering. Nearly three weeks ago with no warning to myself or others, I stopped posting on Twitter. I stopped updating Facebook, stopped checking in on Gowalla, stopped being present. I went underground, as far underground as somebody whose whole life is online can go underground. In three… Continue reading Twitter is a Happening, to which I am Returning
One Week, One Tool, Many Anthologies
Many of you have already heard about Anthologize, the blog-to-book publishing tool created in one week by a crack team of twelve digital humanists, funded by the NEH's Office of Digital Humanities, and shepherded by George Mason University's Center for History and New Media. Until the moment of the tool's unveiling on Tuesday, August 3,… Continue reading One Week, One Tool, Many Anthologies
Pedagogy and the Class Blog
Julie Meloni over at Prof. Hacker has a good rundown of the kinds of questions a professor should think through when he or she integrates a blog into the classroom. I've been using blogs in my teaching for several years now, so I wanted to share a few ideas that have worked for me. I'm… Continue reading Pedagogy and the Class Blog
RSS is Forever
One of the interesting features of Twitter is that you can delete a "tweet" you've written and it will retroactively disappear from any of your followers' lists of tweets. This is different from RSS, where, once an RSS reader has collected the post data from a feed, the excerpt (or entire post) in the RSS… Continue reading RSS is Forever
WWJB?
What would Jesus blog? It's a question theologians have pondered for centuries. But the answer, finally, is here. Yes, the Prince of Peace is back, and he's online. Blogging under the cryptic pen-name "Long Haired Jew," Jesus tackles the issues of the day, such as terrorism (although he's no Pope Benedict), global warming, and of… Continue reading WWJB?
Dust? What dust?
Ignore the different looks this blog will be assuming these next couple days. I'm updating my templates and it's going to take a while to get it all done. Damn Movable Type for totally changing the standards of their templates from version 2.6 to 3.x. It's been such a hassle that I'm toying with the… Continue reading Dust? What dust?
Career Killing Blogs
Slate has a new article on academics who blog, Attack of the Career-Killing Blogs - When academics post online, do they risk their jobs? by Robert S. Boynton. The article mentions the infamous (among a very small circle of academic bloggers) Chronicle article, Bloggers Need Not Apply, which essentially argues that academics who have their… Continue reading Career Killing Blogs
GMU Course Blogs
I've been fed up with the standard issue university courseware options--namely Blackboard and WebCT--so I decided this semester to wing it with my own version of courseware (what I'm calling "of-courseware") powered by WordPress. Although Sample Reality runs on Movable Type, I've been hearing good things about WordPress, and I thought I'd give it a… Continue reading GMU Course Blogs