It was a busy day, and Chuck left before we had a chance to get his picture.
 This is Mike trying to look silly. |
 This is me trying to look cool. |
Author Archives: ghw
a new herder of the word
A new blogger joins the Wordherders with jeblog. From the first entry:
Primarily, I will log my consumption of culture and/or media, from the somewhat contrary position of someone who believes that less culture/media is more.
Secondarily, I will log my own production of culture/media, such as virtual performance spaces, and installations, as well as various digital projects.
I will also be logging my work life as a web/graphic designer and scholar/academic, as well as some of my other avocations/interests/investments, such as music, activism, and buddhist meditation practice.
And then occasionally there will be something that doesn’t fit into any category, with which, dear reader, you must deal.
I will aspire to concision in my entries and, most often, fail.
First favorite quote, from Samuel Beckett: “To be an artist is to fail, as no other dare fail.”
Sounds like it will be interesting stuff. Welcome, jeblog!
motivation
I gave a 5-question quiz in one of my classes today, and every single student did poorly. Let me rephrase that: every single student failed. This was not a difficult quiz, which leads me to hypothesize that the problem is that students just aren’t doing the reading, although it might indicate that they are having trouble with the material. They were assigned “What’s a blog?” at Blogger and this basic “Introductory Guide to HTML.” Very simple stuff. Additionally, the course text covered 16 different tactics of definition for an upcoming essay they’ll write in which they define a term. Consider these questions:
- Define a blog using two different tactics of definition.
- HTML uses tags. What’s a tag and what are some examples of tags?
Most students simply left these questions blank, not even attempting an answer. Part of me feels like it’s a problem of motivation. It’s easy to think that the first couple of weeks are simply time to coast. “We’re not really doing anything important, yet.” Then a quiz comes along. “Oh! You wanted us to actually read that stuff?”
However, I need to check in with the students during my next class to see what’s going on. I’ll point out the universal failure and ask their thoughts on the results. The biggest mistake a teacher can make is to assume one’s own infallibility.
microsoft on reading
Via Slashdot:
neile writes “I stumbled across a fascinating paper over at the Microsoft Typography site today that provides a really nice overview of the different theories on how humans read. If you thought we read by recognizing word shapes, think again! With the assistance of fancy eye-tracking cameras researchers have been able to devise several clever experiments to give us new insight into how reading works.” We’ve linked to some of Larson’s work previously.
feather on the history of the book
John Feather, “The Book in History and the History of the Book“:
The history of the book is built up, like all social history, from bricks, each complete in itself, but each fulfilling its true role only when it is linked with others. If it is indeed true that the book, and the written or printed word it contains, is central to our history, then it follows that it is also central to the study and writing of history. Our understanding of the past, which is the ultimate objective of all history, will be severely impaired if we do not recognize this crucial fact … The perimiters of book history are defined by the perimeters of the printed word itself and if we accept, as surely we must, that we live in a culture whose development has been based on the transmission and understanding of words, then the history of the book is as fundamental to history as is the book itself to the culture whose history we seek to learn.