Fitzpatrick – The Pleasure of the Blog: The Early Novel, the Serial, and the Narrative Archive – Nifty thesis:” “All blogs, for Himmer, are in some sense literary, because of the nature of their readers’ interactions with them. … Such a claim begins to suggest that the reasons we read blogs may be slightly different than we have often imagined; through this understanding, blogs offer not simply a voyeuristic peek into someone else’s life — though, obviously, that numbers among their pleasures, too — but they also offer a form of writing that engages the reader by requiring her not simply to consume the content presented but also, in some sense, to produce that content, to complete what is present through a knowledge of what is past, an exploration of the ways that that present is situated, and a commitment to return in the future.” – (bloggingnarrativeidentitygenrereading )
Can the Student Course Evaluation Be Redeemed? – Takes a broad look at student evals across the country and across fields. Seeking an alternative to student evals: “He cast doubt on their validity and reliability, proposing that instead, professors complete an inventory of the research-based teaching practices they use.” Looks at IDEA student ratings system, and critiques it lightly. Comments support IDEA.IF the idea is to guide the faculty in develop=ing a better course, then IDEA would make a fair model to use. But if that’s how it’s used, there is no reason to report to administration semester by semester. – (student_evaluationassessment )
Fortune favors the bold and the italicized – A little upset here on the visual side: designing texts for difficult reading: "disfluency – the subjective experience of difficulty associated with cognitive operations – leads to deeper processing … Study 1 found that information in hard-to-read fonts was better remembered than easier to read information in a controlled laboratory setting. Study 2 extended this finding to high school classrooms. The results suggest that superficial changes to learning materials could yield significant improvements in educational outcomes." – (readingvizualizationvisualdesigndesign )
Fitzpatrick – The Pleasure of the Blog: The Early Novel, the Serial, and the Narrative Archive – Nifty thesis:" "All blogs, for Himmer, are in some sense literary, because of the nature of their readers’ interactions with them. … Such a claim begins to suggest that the reasons we read blogs may be slightly different than we have often imagined; through this understanding, blogs offer not simply a voyeuristic peek into someone else’s life — though, obviously, that numbers among their pleasures, too — but they also offer a form of writing that engages the reader by requiring her not simply to consume the content presented but also, in some sense, to produce that content, to complete what is present through a knowledge of what is past, an exploration of the ways that that present is situated, and a commitment to return in the future." – (bloggingidentitygenrenarrativereading )