Lowrider Librarian

I attended the NW Great Teaching Seminar this week and it was life changing. This seminar is part of the National Great Teachers Seminar Series . It lasted five days and was held at the amazingly serene and picturesque Menucha retreat in Oregon's Columbia River Gorge.  There were over 30 other seminar participants! Scenic views were readily available All attendees teach at community colleges, but come from various disciplines. Based on the premise that the real experts on teaching are those who teach, the seminar was led by five amazing individuals: Linda Gerber, Phil Corliss, April Fong, Doug Dickson and Jan Woodcock. Following a "flexibly rigid" format, meals were held at 8 am, 12 and 6 pm daily; the rest of the schedule revolved around these times. Jan Woodcock Humor, experience, practical knowledge, active engagement, integrated learning and game-centered teaching made this seminar a life-changing experience for me. Mingling of ideas The for...

Ten D2L Retention Strategies By Max Macias 2/2014 Email the class their assignments for the week via D2L email every Monday to make sure everyone is kept abreast of where they are supposed to be and the time frames for the class. Create a Google Calendar and share it with the class.  Either embedd it, or send it to your students via email.  Have all the class assignments on entered on the calendar and the due dates clearly stated.   Embed your Google Class Calendar in your news feed with the D2L embed tool.  Tell your students they can click on events in the calendar and directly copy them to their own personal calendars. Give clear feedback that lets the student know what they are doing well, and what they need to work on to get the outcomes for the class.    Make comments on the student’s documents with the “insert comment” tool.   Contact Students via Dropbox list, when dropbox assignments...

We live in a time unprecedented for information and knowledge in management and organizational cultures. Systems theory and other theories of organizational innovation state that there must be open channels of communication in the organization. Yet, today we use organizational communication based on the memo to communicate for the most part. With the technology available today it is easy to increase communication in your organization even with a tight budget. I am going to talk about 10 things one can do with technology to facilitate communication, either externally or internally. The applications are free and just take the investment of time/labor to get them going. 1) Start a blog. Yes, I know, everyone has heard this before. However, there are so many blogs that are boring or irrelevant. Make your blog interesting--invite guest posters who cover different aspects of your organization. You can even bring in guest bloggers who are external to your organization. Blogs can imp...

Mel Gibson--Stick to Mad Max, Jesus or Braveheart! by Max Macias "A great civilization is not conquered from without until it has destroyed itself from within." Will Durant Quote This quote above begins Mel Gibson’s newest work, Apocalypto. These words can be interpreted to mean that the Mayans and all Nican Tlaca cultures got what they deserved. Contained within this moral judgment is the justification that we received what we deserved as well. This is to say, the descendants of the savage ‘Aztecs, Mayans, and other Indians of the Americas’ are in their present social situation because of their past actions and rightfully so. This justifies the way things are and serves to build hatred against indigenous peoples, but more importantly it can also weaken our own self-worth. Some people will say that Apocalypto is just a movie, but it is not just a movie--this kind of work can and should be defined as propaganda. When you see something w...