Want some advice on starting a graduate program as a part-time grad student? How about teaching with Twitter? Or a means of evaluating student blogs or the best note-taking software for your Android device? Professor Mark Sample dishes on these questions and more in his new role as a contributing editor to The Chronicle of Higher Education blog, ProfHacker.
The ProfHacker blog takes its name from the idea of hacking a computer to make it do more than it once did, and though it has a strong technology focus, its brief is more expansive. It "delivers tips, tutorials, and commentary on pedagogy, productivity, and technology in higher education." Sample started writing for the blog as a guest columnist, and was recently asked to join as a full-time contributing member.
Sample mostly focuses on teaching with technology, though he too covers a wider ranger of subjects. He writes three or four columns a month, and enjoys getting feedback on them from the comments section of the site, and linked sites on Facebook and Twitter. On teaching with technology effectively, Sample remarks that if the technology becomes a barrier between student and instructor "then you're doing it wrong. If you're doing it right it lowers that barrier." He also notes that the idea students are now part of a "born digital" generation is "too broad a generalization to be useful."
His favorite, all-purpose tip from the ProfHacker blog? Sample recommends this advice from one of his colleagues: Ask yourself, "what can I spend fiteen minutes doing today that will make my life easier tomorrow."
You're welcome.
October 07, 2010