Multilitteratus Incognitus

I was reading Twitter the other daaayyy (just picture someone from Letterkenny saying this😜) and I came upon yet another discussion that basically boiled down to online (or remote) versus face-to-face. I made the mistake of reading the replies🙄.   On the one hand, I was hoping that there would be a more nuanced discussion (and to be fair, I did get those types of replies from people I follow), but there were so many more about "online not being for everyone,"  about how people who teach face to face can "see if their points are landing and if learners are confused," or how "face to face is easier for building community" (maybe for you extroverts...🤨), or even "online works great if you love reading information off a screen and taking self-paced tests" (someone's learning like it's 1999...🤣) and other such (insert word/phrase of your choice). Obviously, the quotes are paraphrased. I became upset and irritated reading such non-sense pos

It's a Boston thing... Alright, this blog post has been sitting in my drafts for a while, since I am procrastinating writing that paper on video game preservation (a story for another blog), why no blog?😂. Now that the dissertation is done, and the doctoral degree is completed, I've been spending a little more time observing the ID-sphere on Reddit, Facebook, and Twitter and I have seen a fair number of threads that solicit feedback and advice regarding doctoral studies in the field of instructional design or something like educational leadership.  These two things come up often and it's no surprise given that that advertising for PhDs in ID and Ed Leadership come up even for me (including in Instagram where I basically mostly post nature photos!!!). It's usually certain for-profit universities that are responsible for the bulk of this advertising - at least for me, but I see certain names come up in the Facebook and Reddit threads as well. It's never your local st

Image by Greg Montani from Pixabay Okay...okay!  I know, it's only been a couple of months since I defended my dissertation, and it's only been one month since it was totally official and on my transcript, but in thinking about further research I am simultaneously filled with both excitement and dread.  There are some things I want to pull out of my dissertation and polish up for an article, there are also threads on MOOCs and lurking that I want to return to, but I am feeling this sense of "oof😫" when I think about actually jumping in again.   It is quite possible that I need a much longer break, and maybe an actual vacation, but this reflection on research and publishing has gotten me to ponder the point of publishing as an alt-ac. Now that I am done with the doc program, many people ask if I'm going to pursue a tenure position somewhere. It's an interesting thought (neither appealing nor unappealing), but then the question does make me reflect on what I d

  Courtesy of Redbubble After one-too-many "news" posts on IHE about plagiarism and "rigor" I decided to stop subscribing to IHE's RSS feed.  Idiocies that used to be a comment left in an actual news article (one which you could ignore) now have been promoted as opinion pieces on IHE.  To put it quite simply the junk-to-treasure ratio is now completely off on that site and there is no longer value to keep checking it as part of my regular news feed. That said, there was an article back in August (wow, a month went by!) by Ray Schroeder that I wanted to respond to. The article is titled Demise of the Baccalaureate Degree  and it provokes the reader with the following lede "Overpriced, outdated and no longer required by an increasing number of employers, is the baccalaureate in a death spiral?"  Let me just say that this is BS, right now. Go ahead and read it, if you'd like, and come back after that. It's disheartening to see a leader in distance

I don't often get to put on my HR/management/talent development hat, but I came across this interesting tweet this past week that got me thinking .  I started to write a tweet reply to it, but it got too lengthy (so here we are - back in the blog😁). A week or so ago I met with some former colleagues and mentors (folks who've already retired), which also reminded me of the mini scramble when I resigned a position years ago, and when counteroffers were considered. The text of the tweet (for posterity) is as follows: Resigned today. Current employer is scrambling to counter.  This is my PSA to those with the power to promote - don’t wait until your best employees want to leave to give them an offer that shows you value them. I couldn't agree more with the sentiments expressed by the tweet.  When someone resigns they most likely have another job already lined up and are least likely to take you up on your counteroffer. At this point, you've already lost your valued employ

I am sure there are other metaphors out there but emerging from the monastic cave seemed to be the first metaphor that came to mind.  Apparently, it's common, because there is a meme for it! Maybe Laura Gibbs can suggest other folklore tales and metaphors that are not cave-based 😄. In any case, this past week I've been thinking: How does one get re-inducted into their various social networks after such a prolonged absence? Prior to starting my doctoral journey, I was quite active in a variety of communities on the web.  Some were MOOC-based, others were things like Virtually Connecting , and others were just  banter on Twitter that led to blogging, and in return led to more discussion, banter, critical thinking, and so on.  There was even academic research and publishing in there somewhere.  With my entry into a doctoral program, I ended up putting a lot of things on the back burner. I still followed friends on Twitter and posted from time to time (or retweeted interesting thi

Airport Lounge (looks inviting, yet it's temporary) I'm back, baby! (just picture me as Frank Constanza from Seinfeld 😂) OK, dissertation done(ish)  [just waiting for final approvals], and oral defense passed.  So, I guess I have some more free time to blog, and MOOC [if a MOOC were to become available 😉].  It's been a rather...interesting 18 months.  I've been wanting to work fully remote for years and I got my wish.  I just wish that we didn't need to have a global pandemic as the reason for it.  This fall, we're slated to return to campus, and I am a bit apprehensive. More on that perhaps in future blog posts. For now, I wanted to write some thoughts that came by reading my friend Lance's most recent [unpublished] IHE piece.  You can read the entire piece, titled "Instructional Designers on Campuses" here . There's no doubt that we've learned a lot during this pandemic. How much learning loss  administrators and faculty experience, onc

It's been a while since I've blogged about...anything, really! After a lot of writing, feedback, editing, some more feedback, some more editing, my dissertation is finally ready to be defended.  Since Dissertation Defense is a "DD", it reminded me a bit of the Dunkin' Donuts logo, so here's my New England mind thought it would be fun to create a logo to riff off the Dunks logo (how locals refer to Dunkin' Donuts). The first date of available availability was July 7, and I took it.  The 07/07 was a nice reduplication.  In retrospect, I should have chosen the 14th, so I could have 07/14/21 😂. Oh well, maybe for the next doctoral degree (ROFL). At the moment I am spending time reviewing what I submitted, taking notes, making a plan for the presentation, and getting ready for the 2 hours of questions.  With five (5) people on my examination committee and 20 minutes given to each member (and another 20 for me to present), that's going to be a long one. Mor