Comments on: Eighteenth-Century Audio: A WordPress Social Site?

By: Tom

Tom — Fri, 07 Dec 2007 14:56:07 +0000

Jim,

Hadn’t read my email! I will be seeing you on Tuesday. What a strangely small world.

Tom

By: Tom

Tom — Fri, 07 Dec 2007 13:54:48 +0000

That’d be great. I’m still getting my feet under me with the college game so it’d be great to talk to someone who’s been doing it for a while (outside of UR- I like different points of view).

If I recall correctly, Gardner Campbell came here from UMW for a while. I don’t know if you get to work with him much. I’d guess so based on his blog. I wasn’t even thinking of working at UR at that point but had always intended to come by and introduce myself if I could figure a way to do it without seeming to be too much of a stalker.

I’m certainly honored that bionicteaching would be useful to you. I’m interested to see how what I write there (however sporadically) might change with my new job. In some ways I figure learning is learning so the differences might not be much at all. Although there are some new interesting tools here that I haven’t had access to before so we’ll see.

Tom

By: jimgroom

jimgroom — Fri, 07 Dec 2007 04:05:10 +0000

So you’re at the Univ of Richmond Tom. Very, very interesting!!! I might see you there on Tuesday, and perhaps we can talk about all this stuff a bit more, I am a huge fan of Bionic Teaching.

By: Tom

Tom — Fri, 07 Dec 2007 03:44:41 +0000

Jim-

Glad that you found the project discussion useful- it’s strange how things cross over. You’ve more than returned the favor with this post. I’ve just started working at the Univ. of Richmond and they’re running WPMU which is new to me so a lot of your posts have been very helpful.

Thanks again,

Tom

By: Brian

Brian — Thu, 06 Dec 2007 19:55:29 +0000

I’m not sure I am grasping the totality of what you are doing here, yet I am haunted by the suspicion that is it is very important that I do…

In any event, colour me impressed.

By: jimgroom

jimgroom — Thu, 06 Dec 2007 17:30:49 +0000

From there, all it took was Jim Groomâ€™s amazing genius. Now the prospects seem almost limitless!

Yet another testimonial worthy of the reverend! Say it again Marie, say it again!

In all seriousness, you have been an unbelievable colleague over the last two years because you don’t let me run the show, you aren’t susceptible to my slick sales pitches, and you know what you want. Those are the ingredients of a great collaboration. Thanks for letting me imagine with you Marie, it is always a pleasure.

By: Marie McAllister

Marie McAllister — Thu, 06 Dec 2007 16:34:03 +0000

In fact, my first goal was even more basic than Jim suggests: too many of my students have problems understanding the actual meaning of older poems. Maybe it’s because they spend high school focused on standardized tests, but some really struggle with poetic diction, inverted word order, older vocabulary, and other aspects of 18th-century poetry. I could see that they did better if they could hear a poem read aloud by someone aware of where to pause and what to emphasize–or even read aloud by a classmate who was similarly confused.

I first imagined just making available some recordings of me reading the tougher poems, in case students wanted to listen as they read. Then I started wondering if I could somehow get student readings to be part of the process: we do a lot of speaking-intensive courses here, and I thought that recording favorites might help students make these poems their own. From there, all it took was Jim Groom’s amazing genius. Now the prospects seem almost limitless!

By: Michael Caulfield

Michael Caulfield — Thu, 06 Dec 2007 14:13:15 +0000

I love posts like this that combine the excitement of the application and use with a bit of backend geektitude.