As that well known song from the Sound of Music suggests, there is a time and a place and many ways to say good bye. For me, So Long Farewell seems appropriate as I near the end of my role as a TA Developer at the Centre for Teaching Excellence. (I will admit that the inspiration came from a recent outing to the musical in Toronto. And just in case you’re a bit concerned, let me assure you that I won’t use this blog to paraphrase the song, nor is there a YouTube video of me performing it.) Continue reading So long, farewell, auf Wiedersehen, adieu . . . – Sheila Hannon
Word Frequency Visualization with Wordle – Mark Morton
On the lower left-hand side of this blog you’ll notice what is called a tag cloud: it’s a cluster of the words that people who have posted to this blog have “tagged” their postings with. For example, I’ll probably tag this posting with words like “technology,” “web 2.0,” and “wordle.” These tags allow other users to search the archive of the blog: if someone is interested in learning technologies, they can do so search for the word “technology” and all the posting that have been tagged with that word will appear. Tag clouds take all those tag words and display them as a cluster; moreover, the more times that a tag word appears, the larger it will appear in the cluster. That way, you can tell, at a glance, what are the popular themes across the blog postings. Continue reading Word Frequency Visualization with Wordle – Mark Morton
Constructing a Syllabus: Challenges and Insights – Mareike Mueller
For a Canadian student at a Canadian university, it’s probably one of the most normal procedures: receiving a detailed syllabus at the beginning of a term in each course he or she decided to take. For international students, however, such a practice may not be common at all. Continue reading Constructing a Syllabus: Challenges and Insights – Mareike Mueller
Twittering and Continuous Partial Attention – Trevor Holmes
For a week, I’ve been Twittering. Normally, Mark Morton (intrepid voyager in neotechnology-land) would be the jolly fellow bringing you glad tidings of great techno-teaching joy. Having experimented for something like fifteen years in the classroom, though, I thought it would be fun to continue my Early Adopter mentality and change up my own course this coming Winter term over at That Other University down the street, adding a bunch of social networking tools that had previously existed in partial form or by accident in Cultural Studies 101. Continue reading Twittering and Continuous Partial Attention – Trevor Holmes
Notes v. Maps: Trading Quantity for Quality – Chris Ray
At the beginning of the fall semester, I showed up to my Thursday night Business Law class ready to soak up all the information that was going to allow me to do well in the course. I’m a ‘laptop student’, so usually once the teacher starts talking, I’m go go go, typing away until the lecture is over. The end result is ten pages of notes that I think will be useful once midterm and final exam times come. Continue reading Notes v. Maps: Trading Quantity for Quality – Chris Ray
Students vote! – Trevor Holmes
As a teaching developer, a good deal of my time is spent thinking about faculty members’ needs in the teaching/learning equation. I consult with them individually, help to run a workshop program, go into Department meetings on curriculum design… but I also think about students in the overall picture. My own teaching philosophy used to include an emphatic claim about students knowing best what they need; since my idealistic early days, I’ve tempered that a bit, while maintaining that some, in fact, really do have a solid sense of themselves and their learning. This frames the difficulty I have reconciling two views I hold about the recent voting by students in general and students on Senate. Continue reading Students vote! – Trevor Holmes
Reflecting on our Registration System (Grad Students) – Darlene Radicioni
Fall is upon us again with a new cohort of graduate students. Welcome!
With one term now behind us, using our now, not-so-new registration system, I thought I’d reflect on it. First, all new students should make sure that they are connected to the myHRinfo system. This can be done through your department secretary. Those of you who have been at UW for a while should already be connected to it. Once you visit this site, you can see a list of all workshops that are offered by our Centre. Continue reading Reflecting on our Registration System (Grad Students) – Darlene Radicioni