Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category

Long nights at the computer have been killing my eyes over the past week. This post has some good tips on how to avoid ever-thickening lenses and some interesting comments on how bad staring a computer screen is for you. For instance, computer use decreases blinking to a third of the normal rate and small fonts can actually cause rises in blood pressure and stress levels

So what are practical solutions? For starters, it’s best to work in a well-lit but not overly lit room and support the light of the monitor with a side desk lamp. Keep the screen 20 to 30 inches from your face and if you need to read off documents considering a document holder to place them vertically by the screen (I’ve never gotten into them but know many colleagues that swear by them). If you’re still stuck with an old cathode monitor, be sure to adjust the refresh rate to the best setting and consider a glare filter for easier viewing.

At the end of the day, the strain is something we all just have to get used too but every little trick helps.

Lit to Go is an excellent resource for K-12 lit teachers from the University of South Florida, containing audio and pdf files from Aladdin’s Lamp to the Wonderful Wizard of Oz. The downloadable mp3s are professionally recorded and class questions/other teaching materials are provided. Learn Out Loud has organized the materials by grade level if you’re trying to think of what to use with you class. This quite an impressive free resource - materials such as these are either expensive or not so well done (particularly the audio).

Just came across this video. Looks pretty amazing - gotta try it out.

The “invisible college” of academic blogs contains a wide world of professors speaking intelligently and off-the-cuff. This wiki attempts to organize blogs authored by professors, ordering them by subject and university (the famous crooked timber blog roll is the base list). Some topics (ie, culture, theory literature) have many more entries than others, but this is a good starting point for anyone looking to find academics talking online.

Good morning everyone! As Steve Carson announced yesterday and I posted over on Stingy Scholar, I’ll be taking over the posting on this blog. Steve has some big loafers to fill but I’ll try to do my best. I’m very excited to become a part of the OEDb family and hope you’ll enjoy my links and snide commentary over the months to come. Feel free to send me any links, comments or suggestions to wynnwilliamson at gmail dotty-com.
 

As of tonight, I am passing the baton for Wide Open Education to another writer.  Much as I’ve enjoyed the opportunity, I am unable to maintain the focus and energy needed to keep up.  As of tomorrow, WOE will be in the capable hands of Wynn Williamson of The Stingy Scholar.  I’m sure Wide Open Education will benefit from the fresh energy Wynn will bring.