Laura Gibbs's Blog (182)

Fireside Round-Up: Monday, November 16

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A round-up of Fireside discussions and blogs for November 2 - November 16. The items listed below are in no particular order. Did I miss something??? Please add a comment to this blog post to let us know about something missing on the list! :-)

Recent/Ongoing Discussions:

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Added by Laura Gibbs on November 16, 2009 at 7:37pm — No Comments

The war I am no longer fighting

I just read Ed's blog post about the very human problems they have run into while implementing some technology-assisted learning at his school. I FEEL HIS PAIN. Although the experience I am going to write about here is in no way comparable in terms of scope to what Ed has written about, I do want to share this experience, because it really has convinced me that there are actually a lot of very intelligent teachers out… Continue

Added by Laura Gibbs on November 11, 2009 at 1:00pm — 5 Comments

Making connections online: Kurt Vonnegut and Armistice Day

As someone teaching online classes and conducting my entire professional life online, I often find myself having to explain over and over and over again to people that I actually feel MORE connected this way than I ever did sitting in an office, in a building, where I had basically nothing in common with any of the people in that building. Now, teaching online, sitting, virtually, in the little node of the Internet which I occupy, connecting up with other people who teach online, other people wh… Continue

Added by Laura Gibbs on November 11, 2009 at 10:30am — No Comments

SHUDDER

I am a bit hesitant to post this but I've really got to say something somewhere, just to VENT… I sometimes despair about the lack of knowledge of Latin by the teachers on a Latin teachers listserve in which I participate. I don't mean lack of knowledge of the minutiae of Latin grammar or difficult vocabulary, etc. I mean what seems to be almost a complete lack of basic knowledge about the language itself. Today, for example, a teacher who participates actively in the list sent around this reques… Continue

Added by Laura Gibbs on November 5, 2009 at 10:30am — 2 Comments

The rule of 168: it's driving me crazy

The rule of 168 is a phrase I learned from my husband. What is that magic number? It is the number of hours in a week. And it is all that we have, no matter how excited and busy and important we may be - from Barack Obama to the biggest slacker at my university: we all just have 168 hours per week to work with. Well, I keep banging up against this rule in wanting to improve my classes. Every semester I get some ideas about great things we COULD be doing.. but of course anything I add to the cla… Continue

Added by Laura Gibbs on November 5, 2009 at 10:23am — No Comments

Dutiful blogging... and blogging as exploration!

Note: This is a blog post for general consumption AND for Maria. You'll see what I mean. :-) True confession: every semester I start off with this great plan to blog here at Fireside and also to keep a blog in conjunction with my online courses. DOH: I end up without the time to do that. I post sporadically here at Fireside, and I've never really had any impetus at all in keeping up a separate blog for my courses. Now, this is not to say that I do not blog - I blog every day for my class… Continue

Added by Laura Gibbs on November 3, 2009 at 9:00am — 4 Comments

Engel misses the point: you can't ignore that people teach the way they were taught!

I read with tremendous UN-enthusiasm this op-ed piece about teacher training in the New York Times this morning: Teach Your Teachers Well Susan Engel lists a series of innovations she wants to see in Colleges of Education (higher admissions standards, free fuition, more/better courses, more/better mentoring, etc. - nothing really new)… but she doesn't address to me what seems a fundamental problem: now t… Continue

Added by Laura Gibbs on November 2, 2009 at 9:44am — 5 Comments

Fireside Round-Up: Monday, November 2

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A round-up of Fireside discussions and blogs for October 24 - November 2. The items listed below are in no particular order. Did I miss something??? Please add a comment to this blog post to let us know about something missing on the list! :-)

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Added by Laura Gibbs on November 2, 2009 at 9:00am — No Comments

Redefining success in my state (argh!)

From the New York Times today: A new federal study shows that nearly a third of the states lowered their academic proficiency standards in recent years, a step that helps schools stay ahead of sanctions under the No Child Left Behind law. ... It found that 15 states lowered their proficiency standards in fourth- or eighth-grade reading or math from 2005 to 2007. Three states,… Continue

Added by Laura Gibbs on October 30, 2009 at 10:35am — No Comments

Halloween stories from the student Storybooks this semester. :-)

HAPPY HALLOWEEN. Halloween is this Saturday, of course, and I thought it would be appropriate to make a list here of the great "scary" Storybooks that people are doing in my Myth-Folklore class this semester. So, here are some of the ghostly and scary Storybooks that people are writing this semester - great stuff, I think!

Supernatural Urban Legends

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Added by Laura Gibbs on October 28, 2009 at 5:30pm — No Comments

Learning to say "no" - it only took me ten years! :-)

This is my 10-year anniversary of publishing things online. Between 1999 and 2009 I sure have learned a lot of things about the Internet... but one of the hardest things has been learning how to say no. Well, I think I am FINALLY starting to learn, ha ha. Here's my "history of saying no" so far: Back in 1999, when I first learned how to make webpages, I was enchanted, and was ready to sit down with any teacher anywhere anytime and show them how to create webpages using free tools and free websp… Continue

Added by Laura Gibbs on October 24, 2009 at 3:00pm — No Comments

Fireside Round-Up: Saturday, October 24

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A round-up of Fireside discussions and blogs for October 11 - 24. Sorry for the hiatus: I was in Austin last week, and spent this week just trying to get caught up from being out of town! The items listed below are in no particular or

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Added by Laura Gibbs on October 24, 2009 at 10:00am — No Comments

Fireside Round-Up: Sunday, October 11

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A round-up of Fireside discussions and blogs for September 29 - October 11. The items listed below are in no particular order. Did I miss something??? Please add a comment to this blog post to let us know about something missing on

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Added by Laura Gibbs on October 11, 2009 at 5:30pm — No Comments

Fireside Round-Up: Tuesday, September 29

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A round-up of Fireside discussions and blogs for September 20 - 29. The items listed below are in no particular order. Did I miss something??? Please add a comment to this blog post to let us know about something missing on the list

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Added by Laura Gibbs on September 29, 2009 at 1:00pm — No Comments

Fireside Round-Up: Sunday, September 20

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A round-up of Fireside discussions and blogs for September 13 - 20. The items listed below are in no particular order. Did I miss something??? Please add a comment to this blog post to let us know about something missing on the list! :

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Added by Laura Gibbs on September 20, 2009 at 11:30pm — No Comments

Recovering from another week: ha!

I just had to laugh when I made my way to the Fireside blog today and saw that the title of the last thing I had posted was "recovering from the week..." - ha! That made me realize just why I was so flattened by this week: last week was full of problems, too! Luckily, the problem are not with my classes at all - those are going great, and there are some absolutely wonderful projects already underway, plus I am really really REALLY pleased with the changes I've made to the class. So far all those… Continue

Added by Laura Gibbs on September 18, 2009 at 7:30pm — 7 Comments

Recovering from the week

Well, last week was just a disaster (not in my classes... the students, as always, were great - my problem is with school administration alas) - and I spent yesterday in such a funk! There was the awful business with the Writing Center which I blogged about already, and I've also accidentally run afoul of the official "no course website" policy at my school. That's a long story - but now, afte… Continue

Added by Laura Gibbs on September 13, 2009 at 3:43pm — No Comments

Fireside Round-Up: Sunday, September 13

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A round-up of Fireside discussions and blogs for September 4 - September 13. The items listed below are in no particular order. Did I miss something??? Please add a comment to this blog post to let us know about something missing on t

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Added by Laura Gibbs on September 13, 2009 at 1:30pm — No Comments

Writing process in my classes: something I am VERY happy with! :-)

Well, I'm still very unhappy about the Writing Center's response from yesterday, but thinking about it, I realize that what probably happened is this: the director saw the word "grammar" in my email, and that stopped her dead in her tracks. She probably assumed - very wrongly indeed - that I am one of those college instructors who nitpicks at grammar while failing to teach students anything about the "… Continue

Added by Laura Gibbs on September 11, 2009 at 9:30am — No Comments

the uphill climb just got steeper!

Back in August, before our school year got started, I had been feeling very happy about my new "Grammar Through Proverbs" project, and wanted to share it with others. The director of the Writing Center seemed like a good person to contact about it, so I wrote to her about it. In addition, I wanted to make sure that it would be alright if I referred students to… Continue

Added by Laura Gibbs on September 10, 2009 at 10:00pm — 2 Comments

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