So a while ago we moved across the country. The reasons are unimportant (you can read about them elsewhere), but this provided me the opportunity to re-imagine my office area in our new home. When we were living in Texas my office area consisted of a rather nice and large corner of our home… but it was in the living room, right next to the front door, the kitchen, the TV, the music, the toys, the on and on and on — got me? It was anything but ideal, but we made it work. (Oh! How I suffered!). It wasn’t … Continue reading →

Last time I talked about meeting with a friend who could take criticism well, and suggesting (in question form) that the first 21 pages they’d written were unnecessary. Just imagine if someone did that to you! “Well, Billy, I know I asked for a 10 page paper, and you handed me twelve pages, but you just don’t need the first 8 pages, they’re unnecessary.” But I poured my heart and soul into those pages, you shout! Be that as it may, you should at least make an effort to see if the criticism might be valid (not all criticism is, … Continue reading →

“What if it started on page 22?” … “What about everything that came before?” … “Maybe you don’t need it.” … “The first 21 pages!” — Okay. Slightly dramatized (though only in the dialogue). Recently I met with a friend who had asked me to look at one of the scripts they’d written. It was entertaining and funny, occasionally heart-warming, needed the occasional formatting nudge, and overall a really great read. But I knew something about this friend concerning criticism: they can take it. So I didn’t hold back. We talked about their script and I really did ask the … Continue reading →

I’ve been talking about writing papers recently. If you’ve been reading along thinking “yeah, that’s a good idea to get started this early,” but you haven’t yet done it — then get to it! Time is only disappearing (despite the new sci-fi possibilities of the CERN neutrinos — at least for sci-fi authors). So get started today. “… how do I do that?” That’s a good question. Today I’m going to talk about the “what if” thought. You’ve probably had one (and you’re lucky if you did). You’re sitting in class having a discussion and you get a crazy thought. … Continue reading →

If you’ve been reading this blog you’ll be very aware that I’ve been poking and prodding at you to do something about all of those papers you’ll no doubt have to write this quarter/semester in pursuit of your degree. All of the outside things are easy: talk to a professor, do research, something else, turn in your finished paper. What is that “something else” that gets you from research to a finished paper? Well, as many hilarious (and accurate) internet graphs/comics will tell you, the process of writing is anything but linear for most of us. You don’t just “pick … Continue reading →

Writing any paper is a difficult task. There so many thing to take into account before even selecting a topic — let alone writing an introduction — but far too often students bide their time by squandering it until the process of waiting becomes a frantic rush to the end. You’ve done it before, and unless you do something about it right now (and I mean right now) the end of your current semester is going to look very similar to the end of your previous semesters: stressful. Sure, you’ll find a way to stay awake that extra day through … Continue reading →

Sometimes I’m a big fan of hold-ups. Not the kind that involves banks, money, robbers, firearms, the police, witnesses, etc., but the kind that involves something stopping a project temporarily. I remember being a student and thinking that an extension on that paper I hadn’t started because the teacher had taken ill was an amazing gift from God. How fortunate to have even more “last minutes” to work with than I did before I heard the news. I didn’t wish sickness on my teachers, of course, but I did enjoy the temporary stall and the extra time. This was something … Continue reading →

In my last post I sort of mused about the problem of criminalizing technologies in schools (and viewing them, rightfully, as an opportunity to disengage as well as engage). The problem I have with some of the standard views I’ve seen in schools is that they decide that because something could be used for ill (a kid could, potentially, use a laptop in class to look at a social networking site or something) that they need to block the possibility entirely. Grade schools and high schools are not alone in this unfortunate action. My graduate work at a state university … Continue reading →

If you’ve followed this education blog for the past couple of years you would have accompanied on my journey through my qualifying exams. It was an extremely long and stressful process and one that I felt was very much behind the times and counterproductive (to be honest). One of my pet topics throughout my time posting here has been evaluative methods in the digital age. I’m certainly not a scientist by any means, and I haven’t conducted trials or quantified results into bar graphs, but I have been a teacher and a student during a time of great change (as … Continue reading →

One of the things you should really take into account the next time you’re having issues with a project or paper you’re working on is how directly related the information you’re seeking is to the topic at hand. Oftentimes we, as students, try to very clearly focus on the topic at hand. Sometimes we go too far in our one-minded, single-focus attempt to “write” a paper. There is a useful analogy (and, for another “A” word, it’s analogue): the library. I’m fairly young, but one of the complaints I hear from many people much older than I about student writing … Continue reading →