Jane Austen's house in Chawton

In June I took a long longed-for trip to England with my younger daughter to visit Jane Austen sites.  I hope to write more about this trip later. (In a few weeks, I will be on leave and will be immersed in all Austen all-the-time), but here are a very few of the over 3,000 pics I took on my trip.

This fall, I’ve spent most of my professional time tutoring writing, an experience I have thoroughly enjoyed. I have some thoughts about the process of turning good high school writers into good college writers that I hope to write about once the semester is over. Another thing that has filled my time is Middlebury’s  Web Redo project. With two other colleagues, I’ve been working on the four sites for our offices (Center for Teaching, Learning, and Research; Office of Learning Resources; Writing Program, and First-Year Seminar Program).  I’m not linking here because the old sites will disappear, and the new ones aren’t ready yet.  I’m saving my opinion of Drupal until the process is complete.  I’m guessing when the process is finally  complete, all the work and frustrations will have been well worth the effort.  Stay tuned.

The First Year Experience

Dublin Ireland

June 23-26, 2008

Presentation:

FYS as a Locus for Faculty Development: Creating Mini Learning Communities

Handouts:

Dublin:minicommunities

NITLE-sponsored Social Software Users’ Group at the College of Wooster (Ohio) January 2006.

Among many great conversations that took place at SSUG, one stands out for me. It concerned the different ways faculty and librarians look at copyright issues–especially for multi media projects. Faculty tend to look at what’s best for my class, my students; whereas, librarians tend to look at what’s better for the institution. Emotions rose–even in this very genial group–around this issue, but we all left more respectful of the issues our colleagues face, so thanks again, Barbara, for dragging me along!

Few people could convince me to fly from Vermont to Ohio in January, but bg is one of them.
Lucky for me, or I never would have found myself at the College of Wooster for the NITLE Social Software Users Group. One of the great things about this group is the blend of faculty, IT professionals and librarians present and the respect and collegiality between all these players. After a few days there, I felt like a child passed out under the Christmas Tree, exhausted from playing with new toys: Wikis,
Gnosh,
Netvibes,
Peanut Gallery,
Skype, and
on and
on.

During the first part of the semester, weekly lunches with faculty kept us hopping, but provided us with the opportunity to share ideas about teaching writing.

In November, a trip to beautiful Sewanee, the University of the South left us full of new ideas and a deep appreciation for another part of the country and a gentler way of life.

More blogging will come on the topics mentioned above, but now I need to find my dancing shoes for tomorrow night.