"Lesson in Manipulation"

This video from the Christian Science Monitor shows how easy photographs can be manipulated. We all know this, of course, but this video shows how common this "editorial technique" has become. Many would say, "What's the problem? You want to make a certain statement with your photograph - visuals are messages, after all - so why shouldn't I emphasize what I want so that my message is stronger?"

Ever hear of ethics?

I think this video would be a good teaching tool for lots of classes.

"Wikipedia Editors"

I'm intrigued lately about the news that a 24-year-old graduate student has created an online tool that will allow anyone to identify the editors of Wikipedia entries. It's called WikiScanner and you can link to it here.

(Just a side note: I'm so proud of myself for figuring out the HTML to allow me to put links manually into my blog's body instead of just the title, which can be done via WYSIWYG using Blogger's tools. This need only appears when I'm using Zoe's MacBook; on my home or office PC, the Blogger WYSIWYG tools allow in-text links -- I wonder why the difference.)

Okay, back to the cool WikiScanner: you can't really find out the actual *person* who made the edits (for example, I edited Century College's page - correcting some mechanical errors and adding the name of our WGST chair). But you can find out the owner of the computer that was used to edit (such as the CIA or PepsiCo or the Republican Party). You can then make the logical inference that an employee of said entity (or person who has access to the computers owned by these entities) made the edits.

Find out more about Virgil Griffith, the fellow who created this tool.

"Inside Higher Ed"

I'd forgotten about this blog until a colleague pointed out yesterday's viewpoint article: about losing one's work because a thief stole one's laptop! I'll have to remember to read this blog regularly if I'm going to feel connected to higher ed during my sabbatical. But maybe I'm not supposed to feel connected - maybe that's what the sabbatical "rest" is about?

What to do?

When almost all of your friends and relatives are getting ready for the new school year and you're not? I read good junk (Robert Wilson's espionage novel The Company of Strangers was yesterday's candy), organize my bookshelves (an ongoing project), attend public readings (last night's included my excellent pal Cullen Bailey Burns as a winner of and plan a trip across country (which will involve visiting friends/relatives who are beginning their new school year!).

Sabbatical is hard.

"Victoria Mikelonis, RIP"

Yesterday, I received word that my former professor from the U of M, Vickie Mikelonis, died as a result of her two-year battle with cancer. I've been scouring the web for obituaries, planning to link to one, but I've not yet found anything. I guess that means I'll have to write up a little bit for myself:

I got to know Vickie when I took an Intercultural Communication course from her in about 1996. She was a strong, extremely knowlegable professor, slightly scattered because she had so many interests and informative opinions on topics, but always student-centered. She pushed us to think beyond the classroom and beyond the theories we were learning, encouraged us to think of ourselves as research professionals instead of mere students, and then provided us with the tools and contacts in order to become those professionals.

Thanks to Vickie, I traveled twice to Eastern Europe and Central Asia. The first trip was to conduct a three-week, eight-country research project involving technology transfer in medical institutions, a project that had its origins in an assignment from Vickie's course. My colleage Doreen Starke-Meyerring and I interviewed about 40 doctors, medical professionals, and administrators about how they were using the computer equipment and access provided by the American International Health Alliance (AIHA). The resulting report is here: http://lrc.aiha.com/English/ProjectInfo/Eval-innov-Eng.pdf

The second trip was a direct result of the first, and I was invited by AIHA staff to conduct a 10-day "Train the Trainers" course in Almaty, Kazakhstan. Vickie helped me tremendously as I prepared curriculum. She prepped me for teaching folks who had experienced education under a communist educational system, folks who were used to following orders instead of innovating, folks who saw the world hierarchically instead of collaboratively (or "flat" as Thomas Friedman might say).

She encouraged me to borrow one of her exercises, and I did: she passed out bundles of Tinker Toys (I used K-nex) to groups of students and asked them to build the highest structure that they could build using the toys. The students typically work in their small groups to complete this task. After they finished, Vickie would explain the lesson: she hadn't told them to create *individual* structures; rather, they could have built an even taller structure if they would have pooled all of their toys instead of keeping only those they were given in their groups. Although some students would complain of a "bait-and-switch" feeling to the assignment, Vickie's point was that we come to a task with lots of previous experiences doing tasks. To truly innovate and move beyond what gets us stuck, we have to work with others in ways we haven't before. This exercise was especially important for people who had grown up in the Soviet Union and were now living in independent states.

I'll never forget the consternation I watched in the dimly lit, chalky-walled, Russian-language-filled room where my students worked with their structures. This lesson about innovation came up later in the role-plays they conducted (also scripted from ideas I got from Vickie), so I guess the students learned through their discomfort.

Thanks to Vickie, I had two unforgettable opportunities in an amazing part of the world at the end of the 20th century. She was an extraordinary teacher and human being, and she will be missed by so many of us. Good bye, Vickie.

Snafu U

Could be the name of our college because of all the screw-ups this fall. Right hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing. Folks in charge who don't know enough about what they're supposed to be doing. Dependence on technologies that are only partially functional or usable. Reliance on folks who talk rather than do, alientate rather than conciliate, pose rather than problem-solve.

I'm supposed to not care about these things for a year because I'm on sabbatical. This, perhaps, will be the hardest thing for me to accomplish while I'm away.

"A Librarian's 2.0 Manifesto"

Click on this link to find a strong message relating to information sharing, storing, retrieval, expansion, and use. I found this YouTube video by accident on the blog of a Capella University librarian (!).

Out of the loop

That's what it feels like since I'm not getting ready for fall semester. I realized this obvious thing in a BIG way after I listened to a bunch of colleagues at the Happy Gnome tonight for a reading sponsored by Phantasmagoria, our college's literary publication (not a student publication). After the excellent prose readings (Cheri Johnson, Greg Mulcahy, Thaddeus Rutkowski - if I could add links to this post using the computer I'm on, I would - sorry), I chatted with my pal from the English department and our college president. Or, rather, I listened because I don't really have that much to say because I'm on sabbatical! I'm having a hard time getting my sense-of-self to correspond to my sabbatical state since it's the first I've had in over twenty years of teaching. My teaching identity is one I've had longer than my mom identity - so part of my sabbatical will be finding out who I am when I'm not a teacher!

"Bridge Collapse"

At 6:15 p.m. this evening, my daughter called while I was in the office: had I heard about Highway 35 collapsing? Don't I drive on 35 to work?

No, I hadn't heard. And no, I drive on 35E, not 35W, which is the fateful highway. She was relieved, obviously, and then tried to call her brother who lives near the collapse site. Couldn't reach him. I tried, many times, finally getting through at about 6:45 p.m. to find out he's fine and was on the other line talking to his dad who's visiting his folks in PA, wondering if we're all okay, too, after hearing the first bit of news.

Lots of heart-felt conversations this evening with far-flung family and friends who've heard and seen the news; lots more to come as we hear about those who've been lost.

What paper does to a person

If that person is me: I have to read everything! That's no big discovery, but as I wade through my files and piles (and my history), I read things I've written (some good!), things I meant to read and discard (some old news, some stuff I should have known), things I meant to give to students or colleagues.

Here's a partial list:
-- the raw data (completed surveys) from a research project I did in 1996 with two colleagues from grad school (we queried a large number of medical professionals from Central Asia and Eastern Europe who were partnering with hospitals in the U.S. through an organization called the American International Health Alliance)
-- the PowerPoint-generated transparencies we used at our presentation of that research to the AIHA's 1997 meeting in Atlanta
-- notes and handouts and notepads and receipts from many, many conference presentations (in New York, San Francisco, Milwaukee, Minneapolis, Bloomington, Bemidji, Chicago, Houston)
-- doodled-on and cryptic-note-filled agendas from many, many meetings: departments (English and Women & Gender Studies), all-college, "duty days," elearning committee, assessment committee, Women of Distinction committee, AASC, union, Q&S Club, college-readiness project, discipline workshops, and more
-- college-generated announcements for the last three years (everything from calendars to phone operating instructions)
-- textbook catalogs for composition, literature, technical writing, women's studies, gender studies, sexuality studies, basic writing, developmental writing, business writing, film studies, Hispanic studies, rhetoric (these all got recycled)
-- final exams from six-years-worth of giving them in courses at Century
-- student portfolios - at least fifty - from students who haven't ever picked them up (although they said they would)
-- newspaper clippings and newspapers and newsletters
-- forms (for grade changes, sick leave, reimbursement, purchases)

Oh, I give up: this list is so boring and incomplete. Let's just say that I've read a LOT of information lately, re-filed some of it, and tossed (make that recycled) much of it. This last is hard for me because I also like the materiality of paper (once upon a time, I had a card-making business), and I'll save stuff just for the texture/color/weight/cotton content.

But a purge is good, a purge is good, a purge is good. Yep.