• Art(s),  Creativity,  Writing

    Anti-Spam Poetry Relay

    The ginger ale teemsFrothing over First the counterThen dinky ash carpet Panic nag ensuesFrom Bob, rainy wet stoopHe stands , soddy hidFrom ha! Heated digs Quick call to Dr. PragueEerie fix-ers of carpet Whisk him forthSings mod roomie Thanks to Charlene Doland for the use of her blog to generate anti-spam phrases for this poem.

  • Conference,  Learning,  Online Education,  Writing

    Get me to OLC Innovate 2018 on Time!

    The OLC Innovate 2018 Call for Proposal deadline is this Wednesday November 1. I’m rushing to get my proposal written with a graduate assistant this weekend. Doing this reminds me of my virtual participation this year via Virtually Connecting. I had not blogged about it, but it is a moment worthy of cherishing. In 2017, I wasn’t able to be in New Orleans because I had just returned from a Coursera Partners’ Conference. I wrote a bit about my virtual session and left it at that. When I received a…

  • Learning,  Teaching,  Visible Thinking,  Writing

    Visible Thinking: Land Mines for Explosive Learning

    Student poster with underlined phrases that triggered critical thinking and questions

    Those who teach know that on some days we question if what we do is making any dent in our students’ armors (shields some put up, unintentionally, maybe). This week had one of those days, and several others that were not so. Those good learning-teaching days? They are not of the kind Tim Slater wrote about. The kind where students sit passively to just watch me, watch videos, take notes (or not) and listen (or not). No, a good teaching/learning facilitation day is when the students speak, a lot, with focus…

  • Writing

    Rippling Out: bell hooks on Humor, Community, Critical Thinking and More

    [Hat-tip to Rob Pusch for sharing the link to bell hooks’ article which inspired this post.] bell hooks’ [lowercase letters as used by author] interview by George Yancy contains several thought-provoking nuggets. It was to be a conversation focused on hooks’ ideas about race. In the process, many powerful notions about writing, community and service emerged. I’m highlighting a few for reflection and keepsake. I enjoy reading my old blogposts and evoking memories of emotions and moments that have slipped me by. Text descriptions of all 5 images can be retrieved on this…

  • Art(s),  Writing

    Elfje: My Little 11

    Somber The heavens Despite the showers Rinsing the swanky Boulevard Clean After reading Kim Douillard‘s post, I lifted my eyes to the skies, frequently, whenever I walked outside my apartment.  The vault of heaven wasn’t always pretty over here though. At least, not during those times when I was looking upward. It looked bland, and boring. Walking along the elegant Boulevard (topmost picture) on Monday, I saw the same grayness of overcast skies — but the sky had released its weight of waters by then. I snapped a picture, nevertheless, of the same grayness. Back…

  • Writing

    Story Jumper Part 14: Dream Stealers #DigiWriMo

    This is part 14 of a storyjumper for Digital Writing Month.  You can read the other parts here: Part 1          Bruno’s blog started us off with a personal narrative. Part 2          Kevin’s blog began the story. Part 3          Maha’s blog continued… Part 4          Sarah’s blog… Part 5          Ron’s blog… Part 6          Tanya’s blog… Part 7          Kay’s blog… Part 8      …

  • Access,  Educational Technology,  Writing

    Screenreaders, Twitter and OCR

    In between living with sink-lessness and unpacking in my old-new home, I find some time to read the #DigiWriMo tweets. After my guest blog post on Digital Inclusion, there were several people who tweeted about the Twitter tips and how my suggestions might begin to have them rethink how they write or tweet. It was good to read about these “wonderings” and to have folks talking about digital inclusion. @brunowinck @Maha4Learning @yinbk are uppercase chars generally easier on dyslexics? #DigiWriMo #a11y — ℳąhą Bąℓi, PhD مها بالي 🌵 (@Bali_Maha) November 6, 2015 @drgbz @40houradjunct…

  • Writing

    #DigiWriMo Day 2: Changing My Countenance

    I love writing, I love writing, I love writing… I am not overwhelmed. I am dazzled. By the range of ideas that have surfaced in the contributions of participating “writers.” I prefer to call them composers; they craft compositions of text, sound, collaborative stories, blinking images, and links. Manifestations of writing in various forms. Maps, Thinglinks, poems, audio recordings. Opus 1,  Volume 2, Act 3, Symphony No. 4. I’m game to try them all. I’m inspired. I haven’t written daily in my journal, 笔记簿, since I was seven? 老师说, 天天写笔记会帮住我掌握语文。 说得一点也不错。 [Transl: My teacher said,…

  • Writing

    My #DigiWriMo AltCV

    [Note: In this sketch I’m the little girl of 5 standing with my uncle who brought me to enroll for primary school. He allegedly picked the wrong school and I ended up getting enrolled in a school where English is the medium of instruction instead of Chinese. Nothing is a mistake, I believe! 3 banners at the top highlight the 3 things I want to introduce to my readers. They are explained in the text below.] #DigiWriMo is here! And I’m ready with my introduction, finally. I noted what Maha…

  • Visible Thinking,  Writing

    Why I Write

    In response to Kevin’s prompt (@dogtrax) on the National Day of Writing a few days’ ago, I thought at a meta level about why I write and why I love writing. I write because I love to hear the sound of words (or Chinese characters :)) reverberate in my mind. To trip the light fantastic… In twenty ways could he trip and dance. – Chaucer Come, knit hands, and beat the ground, In a light fantastic round. – Milton I write because it’s a privilege to write.  To have the…

  • Learning,  Writing

    Reinventing Dissertation Writing for Sharing

    On June 10, 2013, I successfully defended my dissertation and officially graduated from a doctoral program in instructional design, development and evaluation. I had grand visions (delusions?) of staging it as a play. Even as I was writing it, I had considered writing it as a play. My advisor finally let me organize it as different acts/scenes in a play but it wasn’t written like a play script or in a dialogue format. She asked me if I was ready to be non-conventional. I didn’t know what to think at…

  • Work,  Writing

    Youth Wants to be Digitally Connected

    I finally ran the ECAR student survey data using SPSS. A dear friend suggested I use Excel’s pivot tables and charts. I tried and felt more comfortable with SPSS (version 22 now! Wow!). I regret not doing it earlier. Even though I was discouraged against doing it by someone else, I’ve learned to listen to my heart and act on my intuition. There are a few other furious regrets I have about this project. I will keep them close to my heart and shake off things that don’t matter to…