Dr. B's Blog!

Monday, March 31, 2003:

Just a note that Tech Mentoring Workshops are still in full swing. While I intended to do a week on "free" WYSIWYGs during one of the two weeks scheduled, instructors had an easy enough time with Dreamweaver that I switched the second week to looking at how we can create some practical tools for use in the classroom. Check out the documentation linked from the tech calendar...please. It took me forevert o do it and I want to at least feel like someone got something out of it :-) Next week we are going to revisit web stuff and talk about the rhetorical implications of it all. We are going to read patricia sullivan's "practicing safe visual rhetoric on the web" and then talk a bit about how and why we create web sites for our courses and our professional selves. After that we'll take a look at how to us Excel for grade keeping and calculation.
Samantha Blackmon // 3/31/2003 09:59:35 AM

______________________

Tuesday, March 25, 2003:

Ever wonder why you come back from a professional conference exhausted, but mind racing with all of these wonderful ideas about how to change the world through composition and rhetoric?

For me, CCCC was a roaring success. I talked to many interesting people and had more fun than should be allowed in NYC. It was almost as good as a vacation.
Samantha Blackmon // 3/25/2003 03:52:04 PM

______________________

Friday, March 21, 2003:

Lawmakers Introduce ?Freedom To Read Protection Act?
Legislation Exempts Libraries and Booksellers from USA Patriot Act

The legislation would exempt libraries and booksellers from section 215 of the USA Patriot Act which allows the federal government to access library or bookstore records without a search warrant or probable cause. Under this legislation, the FBI will still have access to these records with a court-ordered search warrant.
Samantha Blackmon // 3/21/2003 10:30:10 AM

______________________

Wednesday, March 12, 2003:

If Benetton can use tracking devices to "track its inventory" can educators use them to track a student's academic progress? Can we update their chips every time they take a course with grades and comments on overall performance. These chips could carry all of the information that we need to get to "know" a student, eh? To hell with the constitutionality of the whole thing. Doesn't anyone think about the implications of these kinds of things before they run out and buy 1/2 billion rice grain sized tracking chips?

When they started putting tracking devices in pets I thought "Cool, Dog-Jac!" and then the jokes began about children and "Kid-Jac" and until now I thought that it was just a joke. Tracking people's underwear scares me! I haven't shopped at Benetton since I was...for a while and this insures that even if the urge does strike me in the future, I will definitely restrain myself!
Samantha Blackmon // 3/12/2003 10:48:29 AM

______________________

Tuesday, March 11, 2003:

Universities are swiftly falling behind fast food restaurants!

What does it mean when McDonald's is offering Wi-Fi with the purchase of an extra value meal?
All kidding aside, what does it mean? Who are they trying to draw in to the stores and why. Are we attempting to build some kind of psuedo family outting where Moms and Dads telecommute while little Ricky screams his lungs out in Playland?
Samantha Blackmon // 3/11/2003 12:14:32 PM

______________________

Wednesday, March 05, 2003:

Doing a lot of prep for end of the semester orientation for instructors who are going to be teaching the new ENGL 106 course.

The server went wacky on me earlier this week and I had to spend a whole lot of time that I didn't have to spare trying to get it all fixed. But if you check out the Computers and Composition Resource page you will see that it is up and running again :-)

General Mood: Snarky but accomplished
Samantha Blackmon // 3/5/2003 11:00:51 PM

______________________