Recently, we were introduced to our new moderator, Leslie K. I want to take this opportunity to not only welcome you aboard but to share some advice which I am sure you’ll find useful. Feel free to bookmark this page for later reference.
The top ten terrible ways to ruin CM
10. Updating terms like “vidshizzle” to slang that was hip within the past three years.
9. Commenters must raise their hand before they are allowed to type.
8. Selling the secrets of miserable faculty to the Chinese so they can close the misery gap.
7. No chewing gum.
6. Requiring blog posts to cite all facts in MLA style (at least this would prevent most of our students from posting here).
5. Getting involved in a land war in Asia.
4. Cancelling “College Misery: The Musical,” currently being shopped around to campus activity directors.
3. Increasing the institutional subscription rate of CM by 40%.
2. Moving the whole site into Second Life.
1. Newest prodo: Beaker Ben underoos.
Now go forth and use this knowledge for good and not evil.
I'm surprised there haven't been any administrators wanting to move CM into Second Life. I can already hear them: "It's good to use technology. Some of the students have different learning styles. They're visual learners, not verbal learners. SL is the next big thing. We need to be on SL in order to attract more customers... ahem, students...." Etc....
ReplyDeleteGood list, BB.
The land war is Asia is really only a problem if death is on the line.
ReplyDeletefunny stuff, ben!
ReplyDeleteWhen hippos are mad, they open their huge jaws at each other. I open my huge jaws at second life.
ReplyDeleteHippos also whip their small little tails back and forth to mark their territory with their poop. I spread my poop in your general direction Second Life.
ReplyDeleteMay you underros be filled with pie charts and donuts BB! Thanks for the laughs.
I had to look up Second Life...I'm so out of it.
ReplyDeleteI went to a Learning and Teaching seminar presentation in which they were still going on and on about 'different learning styles' and "not everyone is comfortable with text". So I said, I mean I really did stand up and say, look, they're in a university. They should have learned to read by now. Most of what they need to learn in my discipline can only be acquired through text. I'm not going to teach Aristotle's Poetics with sock puppets. They can read it themselves and add their own sock puppets if they find them helpful.
ReplyDeleteSeveral people cheered.
Now in fact I am not so doctrinaire as that, and I'm very fond of using images as mnemonics and to help clarify. But to CLARIFY the text. Not to substitute for it. Suck it up, kids. You're in the big leagues now.
You go, Merely!
ReplyDeleteI just finished orientation for my first graduate appointment and was inundated with all of the empirically unsupportable, pedagogically dubious "meet the students where they are" and "match their learning styles" claptrap.
I thought I was putting my head in the lion's mouth when I said, in a clear voice, that the "student centered," "consumerist" approach is just edu-speak mumbo-jumbo. Instead, several of my fellow orientees -- first cautiously, then full-throatedly -- joined in acclimation they they would not capitulate. If college is the major leagues, than graduate school is the playoffs ... and the "play" should be fast, furious and, occasionally, bloody!
@ Aware and Scared and Merely Academic. You two are my heroes!
ReplyDeleteI'm creating Fandango paper bag puppets in your honors. Since I'm adjunct, they can speak for me the next time I have to defend myself against the same B.S. It's low tech Second Life...
My Chair once went to a Professional Development session where some idiot Academic Development person brought up the issue of Second Life as a learning tool.
ReplyDeleteThen he came back and asked me (because in an English Department the person who can work blogging software is a tech genius) what I thought of the idea.
I said "I really don't want to teach in an environment with that many furries".
And then, for my sins, I had to explain to him what furries were.
Oh, and also, I would like some "I <3 Beaker Ben" prodo.
ReplyDeleteI think you mean, "for good or evil," Ben.
ReplyDeleteHippos also have pink sweat.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the shout-out, Ben! You inspired me to add another song to CM: The Musical. I hope it is a runaway smash hit and increases our odds of being produced.
ReplyDelete