Tuesday, November 30, 2010

My Post-it trail

I am a Post-it addict. Especially if they are yellow or bright orange. They have surrounded me for many years and no digital task list has ever matched neither their efficiency in reminding me each morning what to do nor the pleasure that crumpling and tossing them in the waste basket gives me (after dutifully striking over each line). 
My Post-it from 2 days ago says:
-Record 27 AP = that means recording the lecture for Chapter 27 of the Anatomy/Physiology course I am finishing. I started really good with all the lectures uploaded as ppt/pdfs plus the links to the podcasts 1-2 weeks ahead. Not anymore, but I have only 3 chapters left...and after that they will be available for the next courses. It is also a long process. I record the lectures using Profcast as it is really easy and straightforward, but the format does not transfer to iPods, so I have to reformat them to iPod using Camtasia. Then upload them to Screencast. Anyway, managed to record part 1 of Ch.27, and a bit later will do part 2. 
- K. Wed = I need to get together with K., a facilitator from the Alternatives to Violence Project to plan our next Spanish workshop at a State prison. AVP is my most important if not the only service project I do, by volunteering to lead non-violence conflict resolution techniques in both community and prison settings. It is not by chance that many of those involved in AVP are educators- I see constant parallels in areas such as community building and group projects. I have done some cross-pollination between the two...So I will have K. over for lunch and maybe do some baking on the occasion. My holiday-meter has signaled the beginning of the season, and that includes some heavy-duty baking, especially of bejgli, the walnut or poppy-seed filled Hungarian rolls. Yum!
- Exams!!!! Well of course- exam season is approaching. Yes I hate exams. However exams are still part of my reality. Note to myself- try out next year the crowd-sourcing approach suggested here.
- January syllabus! Of course, the January syllabus. This is the course I am intending to revamp with minimal lecturing and lots of hands-on activities. This includes lab activities. Setting up lab activities demand a little bit more than other activities. I use iWorx for physiology experiments, which is a great program but it has a steep learning curve in the beginning. How should I do it? I have made videos introducing the instrumentation to the students, but I need to do some screen-recording to show the analysis of the experiments. Should I add a little Excel tutorial too? Should I try to remake all the handouts and streamline them? Hm. Lots to think about.
I guess this Post-It has done its job. Let's grab the next one:
Register for couple of conferences I am intending to attend, either live or online. 
Christmas trip, tree, and gifts.
Catch up with grading (I hate grading).
And record chapters 28, 29, and 30...

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