Multilitteratus Incognitus

I have to say that this week I haven't been as active on the main topic of Change11 but rather following side-threads or catching up with previous weeks.  I think part of it has been my own frustrations with institutionalized information technology, even though I work for "the man" (the man being IT).  As an instructional designer and educational technologist my job is not to be some sort of technology pusher but rather to try to figure out what technology best complements and augments the instructor's learning goals and help them implement this technology in their classroom.  As a corollary to that, if we don't happen to have this technology; if there is a lot of demand; and  if these services need to be campus provided for better access, my job is to lobby, on behalf of these instructors, to get my institution to pony up for these services. What we see however (not all the time, but enough times) is that technocracy takes hold in institutions. The process of ...

It's been a week since the CIT conference where I presented on academic communities of practice and engaging students outside the classroom. I have to say that the experience was pretty enlightening. I do like getting in front of people and sharing what I know with the group, but this particular experience has encouraged me participate in future CIT conferences and in other conferences both at UMass Boston and elsewhere. Now all I have to do is to think of a topic. The interesting thing about the CIT conference is that presenters can choose to create a written account of their presentation and submit it for publication in a peer reviewed journal -sweeeeet! I've been wanting to do the whole research and publish thing after I graduate, but I've decided that since I already have the subject matter (some in my head, some in slides and some on note cards) I can sit down over the next few months, work on the different sections, edit and submit!