What a great time the Baker College Writing Conference was this year. While last year's session was great in its own way, this year's was even better. I think everyone had a chance to feel part of what's going on, whether it was from being an engaged participant in the audience (you know who you are!) and helping the presenters push their ideas further, or from being a presenter.
I woke up (feeling a bit battered and old) this morning with a renewed vision of what I want to do in the classroom to help students. Lana and Julie were pretty inspirational in their presentation, and while I was laughing a lot throughout it, they got in my brain. Almost immediately, I was thinking about ways that I could, as my Dean's mantra is, do the right thing. Not only for my students, but also for me. Julie's interesting discussion of Gen Y and their sense of immediacy and sometimes entitlement, combined with Lana's discussion of connection with the students through the use of technology they are using on a second-by-second basis also got me to thinking.
The result? I'm going to open up a bit more about teaching. That means a few things:
1. I'm upgrading the site. I want the capability to do more here.
2. I'm probably going to add a teaching blog; I have yet to decide if I'm just going to use this one as my teaching and prof. development blog (thinking maybe so), or if I want to have a blog for Composition, one for Lit and so on. Stay tuned.
3. I'm going to dust off Audacity and start using supplemental audio in my classes. I'm thinking of trying a podcast each week.
So, there will be some changes coming. I'm pretty ramped up.
I woke up (feeling a bit battered and old) this morning with a renewed vision of what I want to do in the classroom to help students. Lana and Julie were pretty inspirational in their presentation, and while I was laughing a lot throughout it, they got in my brain. Almost immediately, I was thinking about ways that I could, as my Dean's mantra is, do the right thing. Not only for my students, but also for me. Julie's interesting discussion of Gen Y and their sense of immediacy and sometimes entitlement, combined with Lana's discussion of connection with the students through the use of technology they are using on a second-by-second basis also got me to thinking.
The result? I'm going to open up a bit more about teaching. That means a few things:
1. I'm upgrading the site. I want the capability to do more here.
2. I'm probably going to add a teaching blog; I have yet to decide if I'm just going to use this one as my teaching and prof. development blog (thinking maybe so), or if I want to have a blog for Composition, one for Lit and so on. Stay tuned.
3. I'm going to dust off Audacity and start using supplemental audio in my classes. I'm thinking of trying a podcast each week.
So, there will be some changes coming. I'm pretty ramped up.