Overwhelmed, excitement, SMARTboards, and other stuff

Three things were overwhelming this past week: (1) the dissertation, which never ends, (2) job applications, which also never end, and (3) departmental recruitment. All combined in a storm of unfortunate lack of productivity in a variety of ways.

Oh well, I guess there are several things to be excited about for the coming week. The first is finally making headway on my dissertation. The second is applying for a job in St. Louis, where I did my undergrad, and am always looking for a reason to go back. The third is tech talk topics.

So, on to SMART boards. I am really excited my group will be exploring this technology further in our short tech talk. The Plant Biology department acquired one this year, and although we've had it since August, I have yet to learn how to use it. I've accidentally set it off during a committee meeting, which I expected to be embarrassing until I realized none of my committee members know how to use it either. I think it will be really great to learn how to use it, as it may help in my defense.

More importantly though, this technology is extremely widespread amongst institutions of higher learning. Having this as part of my academic toolbox could really expand my marketability for jobs, but more importantly, enhance my instruction. I think it has a lot of potential, not just for me to utilize it during instruction, but it would also give students the opportunity to alter a computer document, in real-time. They could coem up to the screen and add information and, if I"m not mistaken, I believe the instructor can save that information to the document itself? I'd really like to have that option. I guess I will learn more about that soon.

In addition, it's been fun to explore other instructional technologies, like eLC. I think this will make for a great Tech Talk, and from one we can all benefit. In applying for jobs, I've come across a wealth of different applications and all of them are similar, but have their own sort of quirks and extras that make them unique, different, more complicated, or more user friendly. Since I've never had to use eLC for teaching, or in taking a class until this class, I think I will be able to come at this with more of an open mind. If I had been more familiar with eLC, I think I might have a bias toward it, but since I don't, I think this will be to my benefit.

The last thing I'm excited about is that the Green Bay Packers won the Superbowl! I had to say something!