Post-Ike Blogging and Academic Clean-Up

We started back this week with an interesting solution to our loss of class time. It was about two and a half weeks, although the official time announced at one meeting was 7 and a half class hours. Other area Community Colleges are extending their calenders but we, apparently, worked out a deal with the Co-ordinating Board for Higher Education and the Southern Association to have faculty, discipline-wide, develop plans to make up the content missed through methods of their own choosing. The theory is that a course is no longer measured solely by hours met but by content mastered. Individual disciplines can choose to add extra course time but most are choosing to turn to technology and textbooks to require students to "learn on their own".

Its easier to think about the meaning of a course not being measured by time met when you have taught the Distantly Learning courses. I have already had to ponder the philosophical question: what, exactly is a course? 3 hours of credit for what? In our case, its Student Learning Outcomes (SLO's). Students must demonstrate competency in a list of concepts I wrote years ago. Its always been a goal of mine to collect everyone's Cultural Anthropology SLO's (or whatever they cal them) all over the world. What would that look like?

Well, guess my solution? Blogging. I am blogging lectures. So, even though you haven't had me around I am still blogging; I am just on the "Learning Anthropology" blog and not the "Teaching Anthropology" blog. I will probably do some cross posts but this blog is still anonymous and not known to my students, so, sshhhh.

Anyway, in an unrelated discussion, I know you will all be relieved to know that I have used my spare no power, no internet, no television, time to keep a careful watch on the skies here in Texas, both in an effort to make you all feel safer and to increase my foreign policy experience. At this time, to my knowledge, no Mexican planes have crossed into U.S. air space. Not on my watch. Nope.