Teaching Students with Psychiatric Disabilities (PILOT Reflections) When I was a grad student teaching a freshman writing class, a student wearing a leather jacket and miniskirt put her fishnet-stocking-clad leg up on the table and blew spit bubbles through her front teeth, popping them with her finger while talking to me about her assignment. Maybe that…
Dyslexia in Freshman Composition Courses (PILOT Reflections) While Seton Hill does offer an Honors section of "Seminar in Thinking and Writing" (the two-semester freshman comp and "welcome to college life" course), its other students of various abilities are mainstreamed. Students take a test during orientation, and may be placed in a one-credit lab course or a…
Varying Instructional Methods (PILOT Reflections) I wonder if I’d do a better job varying my instructional techniques if every college classroom came equipped with a first-grader to act as an early-warning system, ready to flop over on the carpet and moan at the first sign of boredom. I love writing workshop days because there’s usually little…
Missing Class (PILOT Reflections) Preface: Did I Miss Anything, a short poem by Tom Wayans. Amusing: A FAQ page that I put up is the top Google hit for “missed class“. Students sometimes miss class for extended periods due to illness. I once had a student who was a group leader in a technical writing class.…
Mobility as a Learning Needs Issue (PILOT Reflections) My father has a neck injury that acts up whenever he is immobile for a long period of time. Concentrating or racing the clock aggravates his injury. Getting to sleep can also be a problem. He has experimented with different seating postures, but what seemed to work best…
Accessing a Map of the United States for a Visually Impaired Student (no answers — just musings) (PILOT Reflections) If I wanted to use a map of the United States in a class that includes a visually disabled student, what would I do? For a low-tech solution, I’m sure there are Braille maps, or 3-D maps…
Including the Student with Moderate Hearing Impariment (PILOT Reflections) I know a smidgen of sign language. I once rode a bus from Virginia to Texas, and happened to sit next to a hearing-impaired young woman. (Hmm… I was young at the time, too.) I learned to sign the alphabet when I was in third grade, and…
Universal Design in Education (PILOT Reflections) At the local Shop ‘n Save grocery store, after you swipe your credit card through the slot, the green LED’s light up with the message, “$9.95. Is this OK?” But there’s no “OK” button on the credit card machine. There is, however, a well-worn arrow, scrawled in black ink from…
Revising Seminar in Thinking and Writing (with an eye on inclusion) (PILOT Reflections) In my first year teaching at SHU, I found the wide range of students I encountered to be eye-opening. My Seminar for Thinking and Writing class included top-notch students who showed up already knowing how to do college-level research, and it also included…
Promoting Instruction and Learning Opportunities with Technology (PILOT) project (Jerz’s Literacy Weblog) I’m taking training in acessibility via Seton Hill’s Promoting Instruction and Learning Opportunities with Technology (PILOT) project. I’ll be blogging some of my thoughts on the “inclusion” unit of this online course. Revising Seminar in Thinking and Writing (with an eye on inclusion) Universal…
This site is about TV Licensing? (the “television licensing authority”) . . . . . . and how they treat those who do not have television. I have not had a television for many years. One would think that would be an end to it, but it isn’t. One cannot simply refuse this entertainment service,…
Academy Award-winning composer Jerry Goldsmith, who created the memorable music for scores of classic movies and television shows ranging from the “Star Trek” and “Planet of the Apes” series to “The Man from U.N.C.L.E.” and “Dr. Kildare,” has died. He was 75. —Oscar-winning composer Goldsmith dies (CNN/AP) Similar:Tonight's Supermoon.AestheticsThe Most Lamentable and Excellent Text Adventure of…
Queen Victoria, Abraham Lincoln, Florence Nightingale and other characters from history may soon be able to speak again, as scientists perfect techniques to recover the sound from recordings that are far too delicate to be played. —Maggie Shiels —Getting back into the groove (BBC) Thanks for the suggestion, Rosemary. Similar:I just found an abandoned blog draft,…
Today STAR TREK spans six television series, ten feature films and several interactive CD-ROMs. In addition, the STAR TREK afficionado had hundreds of novels to choose from with dozens more being published each year. It was not always thus. Those of us who were loving STAR TREK in the late 1960’s and into he early…
The NEA’s recent “Reading at Risk” report, which concludes that there has been a 10% national decline in what it calls literary reading since 1982, with the drop-off even more precipitous among younger age groups, is surely of concern to anyone who cares about the future of literature and a literate populace. While the report…
More than 30 independent Web journalists have been accredited to cover the Democratic convention, and the Republicans said Friday they’ll also credential so-called bloggers. It’s the first time bloggers will be joining the thousands of newspaper, magazine and broadcast journalists at the quadrennial presidential-nomination events. —Political conventions to welcome bloggers (CNN/AP) A few people have mentioned…
The university also will create a Web site modeled on the Apple iTunes online music site from which students can download songs and course content from faculty, including language lessons, lectures and audio books. Lisa Merschel’s Spanish class will use the iPods to listen to textbook exercises and Spanish songs. Sally Schauman plans to have…
She resolved to end the love affair with Ramon tonight . . . summarily, like Martha Stewart ripping the sand vein out of a shrimp’s tail . . . though the term “love affair” now struck her as a ridiculous euphemism . . . not unlike “sand vein,” which is after all an intestine, not…
“Games that treat religion realistically, weaving it into the game as it is woven into people’s lives, can provide a richer and more realistic simulation,” says Destination Games founder and Ultima creator Richard Garriott. “Spirituality lends the game world credibility and completeness. The search for meaning in life is universal, and a shallower life of…
Messages such as “HTTP 404 – File not found”, which appears when a web page is unavailable, and “invalid credit card number” on e-commerce sites, make people feel stupid when they have not done anything wrong. This scares them away from exploiting computers to their full potential, he says. But Jonathan Klein, who builds robotic…