Faculty Academy The 2006 Faculty Academy has wrapped up, but they have a blog with some information on the sessions, comments, and more. I'm hoping to make it to next year's. It looks really great. ¶ 6:12 PM, posted by Laura  1 comments   

  ETC site redesign Yes, it's the annual redesign. I've been tweaking and building and testing for a couple of weeks now, trying to get a new look and feel for the ETC web site. I'm sure there are pages buried deep in the site that are still wonky. If you see one, please let me know. I'm still tweaking some areas of the site and I want to update a good deal of the content. Is there something you'd like to see on the ETC site that's not there? Please make suggestions. I'm always open to hearing from people about what they want.

I learned a lot from this redesign, much of which I hope to pass on to the SMDI students next week. I'm really looking forward to that. No, I'm not a perfect web designer. I wouldn't say design is my forte. I much prefer the technical side. But I stretched myself a bit and learning something in the process. I hope you enjoy the fruits of my labor. ¶ 3:47 PM, posted by Laura  0 comments   

  Eduweb Conference The web has become THE place to put information about the college as a whole and for individual departments. It's often the first place people go to find out more about the college. To help web developers and others involved in the creation and maintenance of college web sites, there's now a conference that addresses the issues and concerns specific to the educational market. If the schedule is any indication, the conference looks to be packed full of great information about how to effectively market your school or department via the web. There's also lots of information specific to developing accessible websites and websites that students will actually use. Looks like a great conference and if you have anything to do with your school web site, it would be worth going. ¶ 10:34 AM, posted by Laura  0 comments   

  Notes for Tri-Co Symposium presentation on blogging Blogging as a research tool (primary source, Jill Walker and Torill Mortensen's "Blogging Thoughts")

• blogging is similar to doing research
• filter information and make selections
  
• comment on that information
• show connections between items
• professionals in many fields use blogs as
• reflections on their work
• a way to follow developments in their field
• to publish ideas
• a blog straddles the gap between the process of writing and publication; of private and public
• publishing academic research thoughts in a blog reaches a different audience than scholarly journal articles
  
• gets research out of the "ivory tower"

Henry Farrell, in his Chronicle of Higher Ed article discusses similar advantages of academic blogging. Academic blogging offers the following:

• usurpation of the traditional academic hierarchy: an adjunct can be on the same level as an endowed chair
• space where debates can take place among academics and non-academics
• academics can reconnect with the public--example: science blogging the evolution vs. creationism debate

Some good research/academic blogs:

• jill/txt
• Easily Distracted (Tim Burke of Swarthmore)
• Crooked Timber (group blog of which Henry Farrell is a member)
• Adventures in Ethics and Science (really, any of the blogs at scienceblogs)
• bgblogging (Barbara Ganley at Middlebury writes about research and teaching)
  

¶ 10:32 PM, posted by Laura  0 comments   

  What if early social movements had websites? That's the question David Karen put to his students and the results were three websites, one for the CIO (Committee on Industrial Organizations, 1937), one for the Montgomery Improvement Association (1955-56), and one for the Student for a Democratic Society (1968). The sites are hosted by Action Potential, which offers web solutions for non-profits. If they'd been around in the first half of the 20th century, they probably would have helped these organizations with their web solutions. The students learned a lot from working on the projects and their work will be featured in an upcoming Alumnae Bulletin.

In other news with David, we're planning a podcast this Friday where David will talk about his experience using a tablet pc this year for marking student papers. I know he's going to have a lot to say. ¶ 1:56 PM, posted by Laura  0 comments   

  GIS in Higher Education NITLE's latest issue of Transformations is dedicated to using GIS in higher ed, especially in liberal arts environments. All the articles look intriguing. I'm looking forward to reading them.

Via Bryan Alexander ¶ 1:46 PM, posted by Laura  0 comments   

  Podcast Academy II Over the weekend, I was able to listen to a few of the live audio streams from Podcast Academy II in Boston. They've posted an archive of the entire event and it's well worth a listen.

Podcast Academy III will be held in Santa Clara, CA and it looks like it's going to be equally informative and fun. I'm thrilled to see the TWiT folks on the schedule.

¶ 12:07 PM, posted by Laura  0 comments