Hello, lovely to be back. How have you been?
This week I was on campus, trying to get organized for the start of the semester, adding to the syllabus, and getting my head around the materials. I took the bus, double-masked because rates of the delta variant of Covid-19 are increasing in the area. I’m slightly nervous about what lies ahead, for many reasons.
By the end of June, having taught pretty much non-stop in 2019, then through the disruption of 2020 and into this year, including summer courses, workshops, and talks, I felt a bit broken, physically out of shape and mentally drained, ratty with the family and on edge with colleagues. I know I’m not alone, not quite feeling myself, that strange sense of floatiness and unease. That’s your mind and body telling you to take some time to heal.
So, I’ve been riding my bicycle, heading out onto the trails, we’ve been traveling as a family and meeting friends. You’ll have found me reading books and taking naps. I have doodled in my sketchbook and watered the house plants. Of course, all this because we haven’t been able to head home to the UK to see family. We’ve missed seeing people so much and it has been heartbreaking to feel such a long way away, but we’ve enjoyed chats over FaceTime and shared photos and messages.
I hope that you enjoyed the shorter summer newsletters, there’s a temptation to pile a load of things into this return to the usual format, but I’ll try not to. I realize that if I have your attention, even just for a few minutes, then that is a privilege and I don’t want to blow my opportunity.
Stephan
Teaching & Learning
I don’t think any of us approaching a new teaching term can do so without feeling changed by what has been happening in the world, in the news, or in our lives coping with the pandemic. I feel a sense of resolve in our community of educators to engage and keep working.
I mentioned before that for the first time I’m including a land statement in my syllabus, a friend sent me this resource from the Native Governance Center. It is important to me to do some research and find out more about where I teach, this is a component of creating a statement, I think it has to be contextualized and hopefully part of building an authentic relationship with Indigenous people.
As part of an ongoing practice, I’m going to update my website with a new semester plan as I did last Spring. I might have mentioned that I’ll be on sabbatical in Spring 2022, and I have some projects lined up. I don’t want to over-program myself, so I have a long list of ideas that need to be whittled down. I know that many find details of this planning useful and hope that you too will share.
I had some fun comments about the AI Teaching Assistant that I initially created (as a particularly dry gag) last semester and thought that we might develop it further as a class project in our Language Learning and Technology course. I’m particularly interested in using it to help us think about boundaries in edtech, and I’ve been reading about AI and the social and ethical issues highlighted by stories such as Google’s firing of Timnit Gebru.
I spent the week in the office collecting items dispersed during the pandemic, screens, laptops, cables, cameras, etc. Some at home and lent out to colleagues and students, by yesterday I had most of it and the center I run is starting to look a little less ransacked and more like it used to. I think ideas and projects might be like this too, some have been sitting in a drawer with colleagues, buried in emails, while others have ticked over gently. It will be interesting to see which projects come roaring back with energy or never emerge again, abandoned, lost in the past.
Life Lessons
It felt as if there was a short window between higher vaccination rates and the arrival of the Delta Variant when we had a glimpse of normality, going into some shops unmasked, hanging out with friends. Already it feels as if we’re moving into another phase, CDC guidance has changed again and we’re encouraged to mask up in shops and public places. We have all been vaccinated in our family except our ten-year-old, so when we’re out we are thinking of him and all the other kids and people who are still so vulnerable and need us to act responsibly. This piece on Kottke.org reminds us that “something is very different now”, and talks about the need for a new mindset.
It didn’t feel strange wearing a mask on the bus or on campus, but it did feel a bit strange thinking that there were a few weeks when it wasn’t always necessary for those who have been vaccinated. We go on…
Lost and Found
Here are a few things that probably would have appeared in another slimmed-down summer issue if we were still away.
Enjoyed this article on why civics should be taught in American schools, I remember that we had EPS, Economics, Politics, and Sociology, quite possibly one of the most interesting classes during my secondary school education where I learned so much of the useful stuff about the way we run the world.
Wikipedia has decided to stop calling Fox a reliable news source, just wondering why it took so long.
We really enjoyed playing this sort of Augmented Audio game and found ourselves giggling and laughing as the story played out. It is great, there are fun adventures and I think this sort of split audio story or AR listening has potential.
I’m on a month’s free trial of YouTube premium and I bloody love it. I think I might even sacrifice one of my streaming services to keep going. I’ve managed to link some of our family accounts (some issue with accounts being UK and US-based), but honestly just some respite from the ads and all-around better service, ability to save some videos offline, etc. If you are a heavy user (who with kids isn’t?) then you should seriously consider it. I don’t get paid to say this or anything like that.
I know the crank is a gimmick but this looks fun.
Thank you
I honestly didn’t do as much sketching as I’d hoped to and hardly any printmaking, but the hope is with new routines I’ll carve out some time to create some work and try out ideas. I have been collecting tetra-paks for etching, early experiments have been promising. I also wondered about gel printing, inspired by Drew Steinbrecher, and the trouble is I want to try everything so imagine how excited I got when I watched this video of Thomas Campbell mixing linocut and watercolor.
The weekend weather looks good and I’ll be cycling with friends in the Tour de Donut, wish me luck (eating those donuts). I’m still prepping our long ride through Ohio from Columbus to Cincinnati, with the purchase of a new handlebar bag and a rear rack. We won’t need too much, only a couple of days, and no need for panniers. There seems to be something in the air, full of admiration for my friend Christian Payne who cycled from London to Edinburgh along the old North Road (A1). There’s still time to donate to his worthy cause and read his reports from the road.
Okay, that’s more than enough from me. Let me know how you are, what you’ve been up to, so many new and wonderful people to get to know, so don’t hesitate to email or leave a comment.
See you next week…