January 6th

The more I thought about it today, the more I think Mike and Kasmira are right. If you wait until you have something worthy to say on the topic of home improvement for your blog of that theme, you'll likely have long stretches of inactivity during which potentially loyal readers will lose interest (unless of course you currently have a house that is gutted and finally getting sheetrock).

I guess I find the most enjoyment in the habit of settling down to read my four or five daily blogs to get a little update on how the people who write them are getting along and maybe get another little window into theirs lives - sort of like those little christmas calendars with the little doors that open, except without the chocolate and hopefully available year round.

So I've decided to loosen up a little and post more often and more frivolously. If what I write in boring and mundane, so be it. Its not required reading.

In addition to still getting over the crud, I've been effectively paralyzed this past week by work. My job is to help faculty members at the community college where I work use technology - thats about as narrow as my job description gets. Don't call me if you're computer needs to be repaired, but please do call me if you want help doing something in particular with it. I do web design, print layout, databases and spreadsheets. I even get to help start blogs (yah!). I also get to research, help purchase and test new technology - which is also sort of like Christmas all year round. Part of my job is to administrate the college's online course management system (called Angel). This is a tool designed to facilitate online, distance education but is also used by classroom instructors to augment face-to-face learning. This is our third quarter with Angel. Summer quarter we got the servers all set up and I attended training. We had one faculty member post his grades and some assignments to the system that quarter with about 80 students using it. Fall quarter we had about 200 students in six or seven courses. This week, the faculty all came back on Monday - many of them full of new ideas and questions after their winter season recharge. On Tuesday the students all came back. After summer or winter break I usually spend a day or two walking around the campuse thinking, "who are all these young people? Why are they hanging around my job site." Then it occurs to me that we are after all a college. By the time I went home tonight, we had 820 active student accounts in Angel. I get an email about once every four minutes from a student or instructor - mostly about lost passwords, error causing cookie settins, or the 'How do I...' questions. Its fun, but doesn't leave much time for blogging.

So, happy New Year to everybody. Hope your toilets all flush and your homes are improving.

SD

posted by Scott in Washington at 7:05 PM |