While searching for snarky sports commentary at bedtime two nights ago, I stumbled across an interesting Twitter thread on finishing a manuscript (because I was tagged in it). I am a big believer in the old Walter Benjamin line about how manuscripts aren’t finished, they are abandoned. But the key here is the verb abandon. …
Category Archives: Academe
Resources for Teaching Online
My department (Art History and Communication Studies, McGill University), got together and did a little skillshare on teaching online. Or rather, we broke into groups, people did homework, and then reported back. The resulting document is our best attempt to produce something useful for ourselves. It still leaves open questions about office hours and other …
Diminished Faculties Work Update
I said that I would get the revised manuscript done by July 1st. July 1st is next week. That is not going happen. Let’s say August 1st. I am behind. The reasons are not interesting; everybody is behind and I’m less behind than lots of others. I don’t actually care that I’m behind other than …
Recording Your Lectures 2: the one thing you can do to improve your recording experience
Tl;dr: record in segments of 5-10 minutes. Never record a full class’ worth of material in a single take. That’s the short version, but there’s a bit more to it than that. — Slightly longer summary: Plan your class as you would normally (making whatever adjustments you make for it being online). Using the plan, …
Recording Your Lectures 1: the one thing your can do to improve your students’ listening experience
Tl;dr:Hang a blanket, quilt, or something else that’s absorbent behind you while you make your lecture recordings. That’s it. — A whole lot of people are going to be audio recording their university lectures in the fall, or delivering lectures live over Zoom. This series of tutorials will give you some easy steps to make …
Multiple Choice Exam Theory: Remote Teaching Edition
(This is a revised edition of a 2012 blog post I did for the Chronicle of Higher Education‘s ProfHacker column, which is now in 404 Error Heaven.) Edit: I did a talk about this for the Faculty of Arts. A pdf of the slide deck is here. The “live” 10 minute presentation is here and …
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Instant thoughts on moving instruction online for the fall
I was very happy to read that McGill is taking instruction online in the fall. There are still some ambiguous words in the provost’s email about the student experience, on-campus seminars and learning experiences, etc.* But this is so much better than pretending everything will be the same when we know it can’t be. And …
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