myResearchSpace

FREAKING OUT and HERE'S WHY: List of things to do: Finish current chapter Start next chapter Amend lit review Finish abstract for 2010 Conference Continue primary source analysis of Melbourne and Indian materials Begin research for my T&L research project Plan my next lectures Plan my next tutorials Hand in all essay marks Read ...

Teaching, I spend a lot of time sternly admonishing my students not to use Wikipedia in their essays. Writing, I spend a lot of time talking about the benefits of Wikipedia and similar peer-produced knowledge collections. For a while now, I've been daydreaming about developing an exercise that would help students appreciate (and contribute to) ...

I'm in the last week of classes now, and the last batch of marking, and I'm already starting to miss teaching. Some academics begrudge teaching for the time that it takes away from research, but I find that it's a wonderful complement to the research process. I've had some amazing students this year, and I've benefited a lot from their ...

...musings on Amundson R, Ewing S, Dietrich W, Sutter B, Owen J, Chadwick OA, Nishiizumi K, Walvoord M, McKay C. 2008. On the in situ aqueous alteration of soils on Mars. Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta 72:3845-3864. It's great when an article related to one's own discipline is about something exotic, and it would be hard to imagine a more exotic ...

The last couple of days (which feel like a week) have been frantic with teaching, covering for a couple of absent first-year tutors and then doing my usual Tuesday Global Governance rush. Some of the Monday classes were interesting - I was prepared for the class, but not for having to unexpectedly take two at the same time! I ended up taking ...

After briefly flirting with the idea of setting up at blogger, I've decided to revive my trusty Procrastinatrix. Perhaps if one day I really desperately want more people to read my insights and insipidity (is that a real word? it should be) I'll migrate, but for now I'll stay. Research So far all my excellent gimmicks at becoming more ...

A couple of days ago, I found a poster for the Young Liberals' 'Make Education Fair' campaign tacked to my door. Concerns are couched in terms of the need to protect 'diversity', 'inclusivity', and 'dialogue', familiar concepts from the left, except that the claim is that students who don't run with the standard left-wing line are being excluded ...

This is my attempt at live-blogging Teaching Month, which I keep referring to as Teaching Week and is actually two and a half weeks of events, so the term 'month' is loose to start with. I'm at the Vice-Chancellor's Invitational Lecture - I hadn't originally planned to come as I wasn't invited, but then I was informed that it was the ...

Yesterday I could have had a very bad day. Things felt busier than usual, I felt less than well-prepared for a class, and to top it all off I forgot my USB thumb drive on which I had some material prepared the previous evening for a class. [USB drives seem essential small items these days, along with mobile 'phones. I have a gonzo theory ...

Musings on: Baveye, P. C. & Jacobson A. R. (2008). Soil science education and the ''age of money'': reflections and concerns for the near future. Water, Air and Soil Pollution 187:1-4. This was a guest editorial in Water, Air and Soil Pollution, and I decided it to be worth reading; there's much to be said for a catchy title. The topic ...