Adventures of an instructional librarian
The influx of AI writing tools, such as ChatGPT, in higher education, has sparked a sense of upheaval in the academic world. This trend has been widely covered in higher education news sites and blogs (mine included), including the recent announcement from OpenAI about a new classifier aimed at differentiating … Read more
As I explored the capabilities of ChatGPT, I put it to the test by tasking it with generating an annotated bibliography entry for a well-known work, Paulo Freire’s “Pedagogy of the Oppressed“. To my surprise, it delivered a satisfactory entry in just 20 seconds. However, I decided to challenge ChatGPT … Read more
I’m trying to be more serious about photography this year. Not that I want to be a professional photographer but I want to take it up as an artistic hobby. It will get me out of the house and give me something to do. I found my interest in photography … Read more
When people ask me to do a trivia event, my first thought is… blurgskdaskjhga. That’s right, blurgskdaskjhga is a real thing. Well, kind of. It’s a combination of two words. The words “blurg” and “skdaskjhga”. From Urban Dictionary, “blurg” is a “Versatile expression of confusion, annoyance, anger, boredom, or surprise, meaning … Read more
It seems like students these days are afraid of failing. I’m not talking about failing an entire course, I’m talking about what I call micro-failures, the biggest micro-failure fear I see from students is doing citations incorrectly. I’ve written about failure before, we need to be accepting of failure. If … Read more
Recently, I was approached by a colleague who requested my assistance in creating a fun and engaging activity to teach APA (American Psychology Association) citation in the classroom. Given that “APA citation” and “fun” are not often used in the same sentence, I knew this would be a challenge. However, … Read more
Years ago I saw this image popularized on social media and shared by an engineer friend of mine. Such a simple image had a huge impact on me and I have been reflecting on it as I consider my professional teaching philosophy. The image is clean, simple and concise and … Read more
I love talking about teaching and more specifically innovative teaching practices. One of my goals this year is to actually sit down and write an official teaching philosophy. A teaching philosophy helps you define your values, goals, and beliefs regarding both teaching and learning. This is really challenging! So I’ve … Read more
I’m not an overly emotional person when it comes to music. I’m also not a spiritual person but seeing Rage Against the Machine play at Bluesfest, last week was the closest thing to a spiritual experience I think I’ll have in my lifetime. Rage at Bluesfest Rage took the stage … Read more
Japan is known for some cool things, but you might not know that manhole covers are one of them. In Japan, there are artistically stylized manhole covers everywhere. It’s art on the ground! Check out S. Morita’s photo blog here. Similarly, Remo Camerota has an entire book about Japanese manhole covers in … Read more