This week I facilitated a lunchtime session for the IDEA (Instructional Design and Education Activities) Interest Group at Mayo Clinic School. The group consists of human resource professionals, hospital administrators, instructional designers, adult educators, faculty & staff, and interested others who function in face-to-face and online domains and concentrate in workforce training, public education, and…
Christmastime Reflections
This week, I shook up my family’s television & movie comfort zone. While we watch a lot less television than the average American family, I like for us to have one or two programs that we watch together: to stimulate conversation, to diversify our free time activities, to give me an excuse to hug my…
Beyond the Content
It’s been a busy summer. Last semester, I was honored to be a part of the Virginia AAC&U Faculty Collaboratives Open Learning Hub steering committee. As part of my responsibilities, I was asked to evaluate and write the final report on the experience. It was an informal and exploratory sort of document, which fits the…
Connection & Digital Architecture
Yesterday I had the great honor of dropping by the Digital Pedagogy Lab Institute (#digped) to spend the day with Kate Bowles and Maha Bali and participants of the networks track. Informally, I was there to be with my friends who challenge, inspire, and remind me of who and how I want to be in the…
I’m Not Throwing Away My Shot
Last week I announced that I will leave a non-tenure track faculty position to build my own consulting business, Bandwidth Strategies. The transition from faculty to freelance suits who I am and how I work. It signifies one of several ways in which I am working to let go of “what people do” to be…
Leading through Visualization
Two weeks ago, Bonnie Stewart invited me to speak to #Ed6170: a faculty summer course in educational leadership sponsored by the University of Prince Edward Island. Bonnie focused her curriculum around leading under complex and changing conditions, because (1) it’s relevant and 2) it’s challenging. In a move that I find particularly admirable, she created…
When you are a muse
Being a muse isn’t easy. It seems like it should be, as you aren’t the one actually doing the creative work, but it takes a certain amount of courage to be willing to relinquish control and accept what other people do with you. I have a friend. He’s a very dear friend. He has my…
A quick one on attitude
There are people who are on working teams who habitually say things like they are willing to “help” but don’t ever seem to take primary responsibility for the work. These people really bother me, probably because they are the professional version of the fathers* who offer to “babysit” their own kids. Fathers: You do not…
Ending Sarcasm
Sometimes if feels like society accepts or even glamorizes sarcasm. The problem is that sarcasm hurts everyone – the giver, receiver, and any witnesses. People who are routinely sarcastic have a problem. As suggested in this blog post, “show me a sarcastic person and I will show you a wounded person. And I can tell…
Note to self
Hey Laura – You were raised in music, although not in the way suggested by Paul Simon; your mother really never laughed the way some ladies do, at least not around you. Nevertheless, her record collection from 1968 to 1972 was killer, and she trained up a music-loving child. Folk rock to pop rock to…
Dieting as a lifestyle
This is part of a larger thought. Some people have very early memories. I remember being in my crib. I thought it was a fine crib except for when I didn’t want to be in it. My very first memory was at night. My room was dark but the door was open and I could…
The expertise, not the pedagogy
Today I attended Edward Tufte’s one day course on presenting data and information. It involved sitting in a double wide airport hotel ballroom from 9am to 4pm; the first hour consisted of a “study hall” in which I was given four (beautiful) texts and a list of assigned reading. Lecture started at 10a and continued until 1:15p. There is one 10…
