“Anguish” By August Friedrich Albrecht Schenck (1828 – 1901). Details of artist on Google Art Project [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons. I don’t really like polemic, most of the time. I think it often just feeds the beast, as Martha might say. I don’t like polarization or pointing fingers. I truly aspire to “generous questions … questions…
Last November I had the honor to be the keynote speaker at the University of North Florida’s 3rd annual Academic Technology Innovation Summit. The event brought me into contact with a number of talented faculty, grad students, and staff at UNF, and the sessions I was able to attend (I was on an unusually tight…
Roaming the vicinity of Virginia Commonwealth University, I found a spot just across from Grace and Holy Trinity Episcopal Church where I could get a few action shots: USA. New Zealand. France. Australia. It’s fascinating to me to watch the time trials, watch the bicycles and their riders in their caravans: motorcycle, bike, car following.…
As I was looking into research topics, I came about an article regarding Organ Donation Vs. The organ selling black market. I was inquisitive about this topic and looking at pictures made me even more curious about it. The top most picture portrays the black market of organ selling, and it made…
I’m at the end of day two of VCU’s first annual University Seminar on General Education. There’s more to say than I can possibly articulate in this small space of time, but I do want to mark this phase of the experience with a metaphor. Metaphors are how I mark my experience. (I was going…
–It’s a bag of gold. –What would I do with a bag of gold? –What would you like to do with a bag of gold? –I don’t have time for your philosophical questions. The aim, therefore, of the philosophy of education must be to get at the meanings, the assumptions, the commitments which are implicit,…
I continue to think about what we mean by a “degree.” Or rather, I think about what a degree might or should mean, and what we in higher ed increasingly act as if it means, and how that disjunction (if it is one, which I think it is) plays out across our practices, our assumptions,…
Note: the title suggested itself when a melody from a certain song by the Roches popped into my head. That’s exactly the kind of thing that engineers might find puzzling or irrelevant, at least within an academic context, but it may tickle the funny bone of anyone who knows the Roches song I’m talking about.…
I have been thinking very hard lately about the nature and value of focused learning, and especially the kinds of focused learning experiences we might explore and craft within school. I greatly admire the DALMOOC George Siemens and his research group at UT-Arlington crafted last fall, but I also worry a little about the binary…
(Who knows how this will turn out. An impossible topic allows some latitude in the exploration, yes? I mean, what do I have to lose? ) To try to explain why I teach seems impossible to me for several reasons. I never set out to be a teacher. They told me (you know, those folks…
It’s been gnawing on me over the last couple of years that in our haste to open up schooling, we may well have missed the greater and more important aims that “open” strives toward. And while there’s no way to protect words from being twisted or co-opted, the phenomena of “openwashing” and the long long…
Hi Everyone, Thanks for reading my blog and interacting with me over the course of the cMOOC UNIV 200 course based at VCU. To read my final project on virtual reality, go here! Thank you! ASA
Teachings of Zen Buddhism Zen Buddhism was founded based on the Japanese word Zen, for it means “meditation”. The teachings of Zen is to achieve enlighten by an insightful realization that we are already an enlightened being (Noone 27). This awareness does not happen gradually, but an instant spark of insight. During meditation; you…
Danielle Gailey UNIV 200 Professor Walter G. Campbell 30 July 2014 What Goes Up Is Rapidly Coming Down The main decoration for many parties is contributing to the extinction of the Earth’s second most abundant element (“The Element Helium”). Helium, a natural gas that was found on the sun before…
Technology is the most fascinating word in this modern era. Some people are against the development of technology. Well the way they talk, they end up supporting technology but never admit that. Technology has made our lives easier and we have so many things that we do not even realize their importance until we do…
