I like it like this

It's been a few days since my last post. I didn't think anyone actually read this, but Mom said she follows my blog, so I will continue to update! This time of year is busy for anyone in education, as it is the end of one semester and a month away from the beginning of the next one. This post will accomplish two things: Sum up what I have accomplished recently and the projects I am currently working on.

First a Neville update: Neville was declawed last Monday, and is now doing much better. He was spoiled with attention this weekend from his Grandma Sue and Grandpa Tony, but even then he was sleepy and whiny. He finally started feeling better Sunday and the last couple days he has been running around, playing with his toys, and getting into things he's not supposed to. He's still licking excessively, especially around his paws. He's on my lap now and has just gone to sleep. He had been licking since around 8:00, and its 10:00 now. I'm sure its because of the surgery and maybe that will get better when he gets his stitches out next weekend.

Part I: What I have accomplished in the past week

-With the help of Mama Sue and Papa Tony, we painted the stairway the same off-white that is in the living room. No more green!
-Mama Sue planted grass seed in the back. Chance mowed the lawn for the first time tonight.
-Survived a tornado that came within 15 miles of Springville (we didn't even get a drop of rain during that particular storm, but its still worth mentioning).
-Papa Tony put a motion light on the front porch.
-I acquired a new class: Intro to Computers online. This was a class that was about 1/3 of the way through, but I picked it up after the current instructor was no longer able to teach it. This is my first full online course! It's one thing to help everyone else build their courses, another to teach it yourself. Looking forward to the challenges ahead!
-Moved everything out of the apartment..except the fish tank. Anyone want some goldfish?
-Cleaned the apartment. It's spotless.

Part II: Current To-Do list (most of this needs to be done this week)

-Laundry. Chance has no black socks left
-Address forwarding with the Post Office
-Grading, grading, grading. I have several assignments to catch up on with the new class, plus my Fundamentals students are doing persuasive speeches!
-Writing the Fundamentals final exam
-Prep for summer courses. Intro to Computers materials are needed by May 11th. That's not that far away!! I'm about 95% done with the July Fundamentals course, and have a syllabus and outline for Public Speaking.
-Get the fish out of the apartment. Apparently the kids who came into our apartment last week did steal something: fish food.
-Turn in apartment keys. We need to be out by April 30th.
-Rake leaves in the backyard by the shed.
-Make the front yard look nice.
-Buy a new car.
-Send our Qwest modem back (where's the UPS store?)

So I'm keeping plenty busy, but to quote Sue, "I like it like this"

Plumbing, Painting, and The Dish

It's been an eventful weekend! To summarize:

First the Dish. After the internet was installed, Dish network came and installed our TV. When it came time for him to activate our service, Dish Network had no record of me or my address...odd since the installer was sitting in my living room at the time. So I went ahead and set up the account once again. He said it would take up to 30 minutes for the channels to show up, which was fine with me because I had to take Neville to the vet anyway (btw...we have a healthy kitty!). I stopped back home and saw that we still had no channels. I called the installer back who told me to call Dish Network. So I called Dish and......

They had no record of me or my address. AGAIN!


I had to go teach an ANGEL training session, so I called Chance and told him to deal with it. Of course, when he turned on the TV, he still seemed to have all of the channels minus local channels. So he called Dish Network and they were able to match our service with the registration number on the receiver. Apparently our service was registered to an Emily McCarthy in Vera Beach, FL. No wonder we didn't have any local channels! After some headache, they worked it out. Chance actually talked to the top account supervisor who apologized many times for the confusion. We now have 200 channels, many in HD and 2 DVRs. Pretty cool!

Next, the painting. Saturday we painted the living room and Dining Room. We chose an off-white. The original was a bright white that looked dirty. We also are going to paint the wall behind the steps that was originally bright green. We primed over it yesterday, but haven't painted over the primer yet. Here's before and after pics:









And finally...The plumbing. Mama McWorthy started some laundry and when she went downstairs to put it in the dryer she discovered water all over the basement. It appeared that a drain in the basement had backed up when the washing machine drained. We had to call a plumber and luckily we found one that works 24/7. Even luckier, it they happened to have a "plumbing special" this weekend where the visit was discounted from $175 to $60. Wow lucky us! Originally the plumber thought it was just the drain that needed to be cleaned out but it was actually the main line into the house. Yep, we have tree roots. We've cleaned it out for now and he said we should be ok for about 2 years, but eventually we will have to replace the pipeline into the house. Today's adventure cost us 500 dollars that we weren't expecting to spend in the first week of home ownership. He treated the line for roots and it takes 8 hours to go all the way through. So that means no water tonight. We should be able to shower in the morning, but no toilets, sinks, or anything till around 2AM tomorrow morning.

In other news, Neville gets declawed tomorrow. He's been through so much trauma the past couple of days after being contained upstairs on Thursday and then downstairs on Saturday while we painted and upstairs again while the plumber was here today, and then he goes in for surgery tomorrow! He's a little less itchy since the vet gave him a cortisone shot for allergies so he's getting better. His whiskers are starting to grow in too. He's also starting to do stuff on his own now!

Hope everyone had a great weekend!

Neville

Thanks to everyone who voted in my poll! However, we didn't even choose one of those names. After we brought him home and got to know him a bit, none of those names seemed to fit. Chance chose the name "Neville" because in HP, Neville is Harry's loyal friend. Kitty is very loyal too. In fact, he's quite clingy...

Neville can't leave my side. He is at my feet 24/7, and if he leaves the room or I leave the room and he can't see me, he wails. It gets kind of annoying, but I'm working on training. I try not to pay attention to him when he cries, and give him treats when he is quiet. He has been excellent about not jumping up on tables, counters etc...and he doesn't scratch or destroy furniture.

I'm not sure what he does when we leave, but I can guess he probably cries for awhile, and then sleeps during the day. He won't eat unless we are there, and he doesn't like to go upstairs unless we are up there with him. He also doesn't sleep with us...he sleeps on the couch pillows downstairs. I try to escape while he's sleeping to come upstairs. Chance is just getting used to the idea of having a cat in the house, and isn't ready for a 3rd bedmate yet.

Besides being clingy, he really is very well behaved. I've only had to use the water sprayer a couple of times.

He does lick himself a lot...and violently. He bites his fur and is constantly licking. He also scratches a lot and has little bumps all over his little body. When I talked to the vet he thought it was probably flea bites and Neville was allergic. Some of Neville's whiskers are also cut off and he had ear mites. Poor little guy...who knows where he came from.

This weekend Chance's parents are returning to help us paint the living room. This could get interesting since they aren't really cat people. Neville will have to live down the basement for the weekend, and I anticipate a lot of crying...











In other news, we are having a dish installed today for tv and we now have internet. And then the Lumina leaked gas. And then Rick found that the brakes were rusted, among other parts of the car. So, at 187,000 miles, we will not see the Lumina again. Great time to have to buy a new car, right? Thank you Obama, for the first time homebuyer tax credit, or we would be in a lot of trouble right now!

New house and Kitty

We closed on Monday and since then, have been hard at work. The sellers left some interesting items behind, and we've had to do a lot of cleaning up after them. Here's some highlights:

-A ziploc bag full of hair (child's first haircut, perhaps)
-Bins full of dog poo
-A bathtub hidden behind the shed
-Beer cans/bottles scattered throughout the backyard
-Curtains completely caked with dust
-At least 100 dead ladybugs in each room
-Pots and Pans
-An old gatorade bottle
-Dog Bones and many dog toys

Since Monday, we have cleaned out everything, washed the carpets, dusted, and started on the backyard.

Here's a picture of the Kitchen. Yes, that countertop is spongepainted blue and red. We will be taking care of that.



More pics/updates to come. In the meantime, please give your 2 cents and vote on kitty's name. He won't come home until Saturday, and I would like to give him a name sooner rather than later. The picture below is not actually kitty, but this one looks more like kitty, except our kitty has a tail.

Final Walkthrough

In the midst of an April sleet storm, Mom and I did the final walkthrough of the house tonight. I hadn't been in the house since February, so it was hard to even remember what the house looked like.

The previous owners left the house filthy! There's dog poo all over the backyard, and the backyard grass is dead from the dog digging it up, and garbage on the front porch... these things are easily fixed though. The inside is full of dirt, the bathrooms are dirty, the kitchen stove is a mess, the living room walls all will need to be repainted etc... Everything will look fine with some hardcore cleaning, that's why Sue is here!

We were surprised to find that the sellers left us with a heating corner fireplace and entertainment center. Not so excited about the swingset. We don't have kids and probably won't for a couple of years, so we don't need the swingset. There is also a tire sandbox in the back yard that is highly unnecessary. We've requested that the seller remove these items.

In other news, Mom and I went to Earl May garden center today because sometimes they have rescue cats and found a cat whose cuteness comes close to Sierra's. Its a tiger/tortie so it has the bulls-eye tummy and has the cutest little face...he is little also. He seems like he has a lot of energy and is soo loveable. We put a 24 hour hold on him. Its a bit impulsive, but I'll take Chance to meet him tomorrow. He kinda looks like this one:

Greetings From St. Louis - Friday's Sessions

Before I jump into Friday, one thing I didn't reflect much on in Thursday's entry was Second Life. Several communication scholars (several at NIU!) are starting to research communication within virtual worlds like Second Life. At Kirkwood, we have created our own island and have started to look into the educational uses, but what I realized from the SL session I attended was that we haven't even scratched the surface. I thought with my knowledge of SL and involvement with the Kirkwood SL group, I would at least be able to put in my 2 cents, but what I had to say was basic information compared to what these scholars were studying. However, we are just looking into how we can use it for education and to help Kirkwood students, not so much the communication dynamics of virtual worlds....one discussion that Andrea and I had that I thought would be an interesting study is exmaining scripts and social norms within second life...if they mimic real life or not.

Ok, on to Friday. Here's my thoughts:

1. I attended the early morning session on getting published. It made me happy that I'm at a community college and so I only have to public if I want to publish. There are so many rules and politics that go with publishing, and so many schools have specific expectations for their professors to reach tenure. I don't think I would do well with the pressure, and especially not the rejection...but I didn't attend graduate school to research, I attended to teach and/or find a job in education thats supported student learning. I enjoy the process of research, but I would rather do it for myself or present it than worry about it having to get published in a time frame.

2. The next session was on ancillary materials, but really got into a discussion on textbooks and textbook prices, etc...it was really interesting. One of the things that my colleagues and I have discussed is that many basic course texts are designed for traditional students at 4 year colleges. When your students are nontraditional and diverse like our students, these texts do not fulfill their needs. I like to challenge my students with theory and application, but this only works if they are willing to read the textbook to see the explanations and practical aspects...they go hand in hand. Students are not likely to read the textbooks, so they are not getting out of the classes what they need to get out of the classes...some because the text is just too hard to understand or is written cheesy. I want/need a straightforward text that does focus on theory, application, and practice but is concise and easy to understand.

This panel also returned to the digital divide discussion and the use of the ancillary materials. Is it worth getting students to purchase these items, when likely (see previous post), they won't use them? Another interesting idea, if an instructor only requires half of the book, the students will feel like they didn't get their monies worth. We discussed that digital natives like material in "chunks" instead of all at once. My solution: Open source texts like Flat World Knowledge. These books are free online, but students can pay to download chapters or any ancillary materials they want themselves. I take some issue with these books, because they are online so there are distractions, and also that if they aren't using these materials when they are free, I certianly can't believe they will pay to download them. However, students can download individual chapters, flash cards, etc...so they take what they need. If they don't want to pay for any of it, they don't have to, but they still have access to the texts. Sengage is starting to respond in creating something similar, but they still will be more expensive than open source ebooks. As of now, there aren't any open source texts that fit our basic course, but sites such as Flat World are growing.

3. I attended a panel on integrating the community in a public speaking course. While many of the suggestions were focused on rhetoric so I didn't necessarily understand all of the ideas, I did take a couple of ideas from it and realized that I actually do some of this in my course. First, for my group project, I have my students choose an issue involving Kirkwood students and have them create an informative presentation. This semester, one group gave a phenomenal presentation about Study Abroad, and specifically, opportunities at Kirkwood. I was thinking that I wished I could have students perform this presentation outside the classroom, because it was really informative. They could even just create a poster session to showcase their work...its something I want to look into because I think, what's the use of tackling these relevant issues if they aren't shared with the campus community? The other idea in the session that I liked is to make students choose a local controversial issue for their persuasive speech. CR probably has plenty, like the local option sales tax and flood recovery. Great and well researched speeches could be presented to local groups and maybe students could actually make a difference.

4. The last session I attended today was Jacki's panel discussion about being a feminist professor...what example do we set for our students. I grew up in a household where my dad was dominant and I never really took women's study courses, so I have never really been exposed to this domain. I took a feminist rhetoric class examining female speakers and I actually did some feminist rhetorical criticism work on Noami Wolf and body image, but that was really the extent of it, so its not really something I think of on a daily basis, especially when I am teaching. The discussion was highly focused on inclusive language, which I really stress in my course, but hate discussing because I hate the debates that come out of it. I think create more focus on inclusive language and doing more activities would be helpful for my students to look at their own biases and try to overcome them. Activities such as women are (fill in the blank) men are (fill in the blank), and then we can open it up for discussion.

What's been great about the conference experience has been that even when we aren't in panels or sessions, the conversations continue. I have had some great conversations that have helped me to reflect on what I am doing in the classroom and perhaps what I should be doing in the classroom.

Greetings from St. Louis - Thursday's Sessions

Since, Wednesday, I have been in St. Louis for the Central States Communication Association conference. I've had a great time so far and wanted to share some highlights of panels that I have attended, mainly for my own benefit so I remember everything.

1. Referring back to a previous blog about the use of technology in the classroom and the community college has led to many interesting discussions. I attended a session yesterday morning about instructors that were requiring technology in their courses...but at their institution everyone had a laptop so everyone had easy access to a computer. Unfortuately at an institution like Kirkwood, many students do not have access to a computer at home, let alone internet. Sure, there are computer labs on campus, but will students take the effort to use them? Probably not. This semester, I have gone paperless and have used multiple forms of technology in my fundamentals course. I've found that the students who are using it are doing better than students who are not, but that is irrelevant because a vast majority of students aren't using it. I suppose the extra effort it takes for a student to login to ANGEL, find the handout, download the handout, and print the handout themselves, is 3 extra steps of effort for them. To get back to our session discussion (there were 2 attendees including myself and the presenters, so it was a nice, intimate discussion), we also discussed the students who lacked motivation simply because they lacked knowledge about using the technology - the notion of the "digital divide." We assume since many of my students this semester are 18-19 and text during class, that they come with the knowledge necessary navigate an LMS, and I don't think that is an accurate representation. However, we don't have the class time necessary for "tech 101." That brought me to my first idea: Integrate ANGEL into College 101. Not sure if it is currently a part, but I really think it should be.

Another issue I brought up in the session was the fact that, if you require technology, and a student has technology trouble, is the instructor responsible to troubleshoot? Sure, we have a helpdesk and an elearning helpdesk at Kirkwood that should be able to help students with any technological issues, but if the technology is course specific (such as video editing, blogging, etc...) the helpdesk isn't going to be as helpful. One idea that an instructor had was to create a "virtual helpdesk" discussion forum in the LMS where students could help each other instead of the instructor being responsible for help.

Interesting stat: Only 58.9% of students in a study by EduCause liked using an LMS. Not sure if that includes online students or only ftf students, but I actually found that to be a very low number, considering 60-some percent wanted instructors to use technology in the classroom.

2. The second session I went to focused on connecting with the "digital natives", so basically, another tech session. The most interesting study here was a study done at Oakland University regarding Second Life and Public Speaking. Students were brought into SL to perform a speech in front of a "dummy" (no human behind the avatar, tho they didn't know it) avatar audience. They measure CA as well as qualitative analysis of general reactions. I was somewhat interested in the CA, but more the findings that students actually preferred giving the speech face to face than in second life, because of the live audience feedback.

3. The online course. I will be developing Fundamentals online this summer, and piloting next spring. I went to one panel about teaching online, but found it a bit dry and didn't get the info I was really looking for (like how to adapt speeches). Some of the ideas that came from this session (and others) are A) Creating a ning page specifically for your course, and uploading speeches for critique here. B) Utilizing programs such as Elluminate or WIMBA to enhance online communication...I'll be pushing for this in DL this week.

The challenge for developing this course is the speech adaptation. Some institutions use a hybrid format where students are required to come to campus a few times over the semester for speeches, others only require that the student finds their own audience of at least 8 adults (doesn't matter who it is). I, and I know my KCC colleagues agree, take issue with students giving their speech in their living room in front of their parents and 6 of their friends. One professor argued that it really didn't matter who was in their audience, and actually family and friends were MORE intimidating than a formal student audience because they cannot empathize with the speaker. I suppose this makes sense, I'm still not sure that I buy it, however. I did find it interesting to hear that many students sign up for online speech courses because they think it will be less anxiety provoking, when in fact many students actually drop because it is more anxiety provoking because the student audience is not their to empathize. Just think, 8 of your silly drunk college friends watching you speak, while they are laughing, trying to make you mess up, heckling, etc...My idea from this is to give students two options for giving speeches: Either come to campus on a designated speech day or give your speech to a formal audience of your choice such as Toastmasters and upload the video to YouTube, or ANGEL or Ning.

So those were my thoughts and ideas that spawned from Thursday's sessions. I focused on the tech sessions, and even helped someone with an ANGEL problem. The one thing I did learn about myself is that I didn't have much interest in attending any interpersonal or group panels, which is my designated "specialty." I think the communication ed and technology is really where I see myself and I can't wait to do some more research of my own and I even created some panel and paper ideas that I could easily submit to next year's conference.