Introduction Readers of this blog are sure to be familiar with the cliché that teachers are the worst students. There is some truth to the idea that when people are passionate about something, it can be difficult to change their beliefs. In the case of teachers, that something is education. Perhaps teaching teachers is difficult…
Book Review: All the Wrong Moves by Sasha Chapin
All the Wrong Moves: A Memoir about Chess, Love, and Ruining Everything by Sasha Chapin My rating: 3 of 5 stars Learning to play chess was one of my 2020 new year’s resolutions. It turned out to be a pretty good one since we’re largely home bound. Lately, everyone is talking about Netflix’ The Queen’s…
Sleep and Let Grow: Rhythms and Seasons in Online Higher Education
In The Enneagram: A Christian Perspective, author and Franciscan friar Richard Rohr advises that those of us focused on achievement should contemplate the agricultural parables of Christ. In them, we learn are reminded that growth comes not from sheer will and brute force, but from patient nourishing and care over time. We cannot force a…
Book Review: Light on Life by Iyengar
Light on Life by B.K.S. Iyengar My rating: 4 of 5 stars “The practice of yoga teaches us to live fully.” Iyengar is something of an ambassador of yoga. Even though he has died, he continues to educate and influence those curious about yoga’s practice and precepts. Personally, I first started reading Iyengar because he…
Book Review: Mexican Gothic
Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia My rating: 5 of 5 stars Counter-intuitively, this Gothic horror novel was an absolute joy to read. Mexican Gothic cover My attention span in 2020 is limited at best, but I could not put down Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s Mexican Gothic. Her main character, the impetuous and steel-spited Mexico City socialite Noemí…
In Online Education, Who Is My Neighbor?
The International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) has developed several standards to serve as a framework for those working with ed tech to do so responsibly. Whether one implement a single standard or focuses only on some, they give plenty of opportunity for self-reflection and assessment. Recently I’ve sat in my big recliner in…
A Charge to Participate in Life
In our small group at church we recently read together Ecclesiastes 9:7-10 (English Standard Version): Go, eat your bread with joy, and drink your wine with a merry heart, for God has already approved what you do. Let your garments be always white. Let not oil be lacking on your head. Enjoy life with the…
Helping Students Create and Protect Their Online Identities
What we do on the internet follows us right into the physical world. Likewise, what we do in public in the physical world can easily end up on the internet. We’re only a tweet, a public action, or a live mic away from notoriety. Sometimes this can be a great thing. Other times, not so…
Exploring the Ethics of “Learning Analytics” in Higher Ed
As our Digital Education Leadership cohort considered ethical questions associated with learning technology, as well as what ethical standards are important to us professionally, I returned to Kant’s “Formula of Humanity” which states that we should always treat a person as an end in themselves, and never as a means to an end (Keirsten, 2019)….
Swimming in Subnautica
By day I’m an attorney/professor/administrator/mediator/PhD student, but by night I’m an avid video gamer. I have been since Santa gifted me with my first NES back in the 1980s. There are plenty of arguments to make about the benefits of video games, such as improvements in making quick decisions (Green et al. 2010), stress relief…
