Another Discovery . . .

The MnSCU Center for Teaching and Learning has a blog, too! Although it's not a blog with frequent posts, I think the list of CTL tutorials from June 7, 2007's entry is worth a look. Check it out.

And also try this small blog called "Civic Engagement and Higher Education" by John Hamerlink who works for the Minnesota Campus Compact. These two ideas are important to me, too.

Much Belated . . .

I have just found out that Century College has a blog! Who knew?

Actually, it's not quite a college blog - more like one person - and some important links don't work.

But I suppose something is better than nothing . . . although that phrase loses its punch in this "instant access, ready information" age. Dead links are especially damaging to an institution's ethos . . . .

Considering logic

In this political season (aren't they all?), we're bombarded with arguments by analogy. Most of these arguments contain the logical fallacy called a "weak [or false, faulty, questionable] analogy." It takes work to uncover the weak analogy, but perhaps this little story (stolen from here) will provide a bit of fun:

Consider: How is a raven like a writing desk? (In other words, how are these two analogous?) Most people might say they're not; they share no compelling characteristics.

Consider this answer: Poe wrote on both of them.

It's a joke, right? We know it's a weak analogy because the answer depends upon wordplay, the two meanings of "on" used simultaneously. (The ancient Greeks called this particular figure of speech or trope a "syllepsis.")

In other words: study logic and rhetoric today so you can become a better argument analyzer. Visit these sites:
Silva Rhetoricae
Gorgias's Weblog: "The Daily Trope"
CriticalThinking.org
Language Log
Electric Rhetoric

Podcast of note

Browsing around the Minnesota Public Radio site, I found this: Grammar Grater, "a weekly podcast about English words, grammar and usage for the Information Age." (I wonder what they think about the serial comma? MPR must align themselves with the newspaper crowd.)

An English Course?

I'm intrigued by a professor's introduction to (or invitation to or commercial for) a UC-Irvine course called Digital Rhetoric 2007. The professor, Liz Losh, produced a number of videos on the topic.

For example, she presents a couple of what I might call "course lectures" that summarize the use of digital rhetoric: "2007, The Year in Digital Rhetoric" and "2006, the Year of Digital Rhetoric"

Both of these "lectures" would be great in any classroom, as would Losh's initial course invitation. In that video, she's explicit that such courses and the area of study (digital rhetoric) belong in an English department. I agree!

(Do you think I'm getting addicted to YouTube?!)

Typography=Visual Rhetoric

I continue my fascination with typography: the relationships between words as words, as containers, as vehicles, as collections of letters which are themselves words, containers, vehicles.

Here are some YouTube videos that I like:

"Typography" by Boca and Ryan Ulrich, which introduces the vocabulary and concepts of the art
"Who's on First?" by Jimmy073, which uses the famous Abbott and Costello routine as the basis for a terrific little typography film
"Adolph Hitler Speech using Kinetic Typography" by sonyaedith, a powerful presentation of an actual 1939 speech by Hitler, profoundly disturbing and great for many kinds of courses
"Kinetic Typography Girl" by Meyrien Janevine, which has great music, too
"Live Out Loud" by Johnny Lee, short and powerful

Thirty Students, 59 authors

The students listed the authors they'd heard of and came up with a list of 59, of whom almost a dozen I know next-to-nothing about (Upton Sinclair? Robinson Jeffers? Edwin Arlington Robinson?).

Which is to say that I'll learn something this semester - hooray!

Webinar

Although this particular neologism bothers me, yesterday I did participate in a web-based seminar (or "event" as Capella University, the sponsor/host, describes it). Intrigued by the topic, "Academic Standards in Online Teaching and Curriculum," I logged into a webspace to participate, a website that didn't make clear how I was to communicate/listen to the webinar (why does no one use consistent vocabulary when describing things?). Eventually, I was able to connect fully, after typing in questions to the "host" (different from the "presenter") who did an admirable job juggling the technology.

The hour-long experience consisted of me watching a series of PowerPoint slides on my computer while I listened on the phone to the presenter talk about the slides. Participants could type questions into the "Chat" space on the website (not the Q&A space which is where I typed my first three questions). The presenter would stop occasionally to ask for questions, which the host would read to her from the website - evidently, the presenter wasn't seeing the same thing we were seeing. Oddly, I could not tell who else was participating: no list of participants appeared, even though I asked for one, and so I thought I was listening by myself for the longest time - and I thought I was listening to a taped presentation because it was so stilted.

Sadly, the slides and presenter were unsatisfying to me because they were both too complicated and too generalized to be taken seriously as "seminar" topics. If listeners did not already agree with the presenter's points and references, they couldn't accept or even understand the advice they were being given. That such an event was called "higher education" frustrates me. I wouldn't prepare something that thin and biased for my undergraduates.

As a person trained in the humanities, I'm used to asking questions, asking for clarification and for support/rationale/reasons/justification for ideas I encounter. In short, I'm a critical thinker. But critical thinkers could not fully participate in this event because they didn't have any opportunity to be truly critical. Sure, we could ask questions, but no follow-ups, so my only question conveyed to the presenter received a woefully inadequate response: mostly broad generalizations without support (along with a sad joke).

I'm frustrated that so-called experts in education provide such sub-standard content - and via the online medium, which further limits the value of that content. For all the presenter's emphasis on "standards" and "outcomes," I do not see that she planned any for this particular educational event. It was much more of a "do as I say, not as I do" experience.

Extremely disappointing.

Reading Lists

Before the winter break ends, I hope everyone gets to finish the reading they'd hoped to do. I'm still working on Otto Jespersen's 1924 book The Philosophy of Grammar, a book I acquired about 10 years ago and have dipped into periodically. I'd hoped to read it rather than dip, but so far I've not managed. Feels too much like a textbook, and I suspect I'm feeling what many of my students feel: why am I reading all this explanation for something that seems obvious?

Another book on my list for break is The Heath Anthology of American Literature, vols. C, D, and E. I have to make some selections from these volumes for a course called American Literature: 1870 to the Present. Any suggestions?

Candidate information

Since I don't watch television, I didn't even know what Mike Huckabee looks like. I get my most of information from National Public Radio, with occasional perusals of The New York Times online.
This collection of images (clipped from a goofy blog called "Vote for Breakfast") reminds me that he's the candidate who is admired for his weight loss, which I'd forgotten. Odd that such a feat would be persuasive as a Presidential qualification.

But another information source I ran into recently is CNNMoney.com. About a month ago, Marlys Harris of Money Magazine wrote an article that analyzed the net worth of the Presidential candidates. Click the link at the bottom of the article to find a candidate-by-candidate breakdown of their finances. Note that Huckabee wasn't even considered a "top White House contender," so he's not included on this list. I wonder where we could find his net worth?