The April Slam Tourney is coming...


Are you qualified?


Poets Anonymous K-Zoo
Open Mic and Poetry Slam


THIS WEEK:


Final Qualifying Slam for the 2007 Tourney
Top two finishers win cash prizes and are qualified for the April slam tourney.


Sunday, March 4
8:00 – 10:00 PM

(Free Slam Workshop at 7:00)


Ravenwood Coffee
773 W Michigan Ave
Kalamazoo , MI 49007


$3; All Ages Welcome

Slam Night at the Fights

CURTIS ISAAC’S EASTSIDE BOXING CLUB

In partnership with

POETS ANONYMOUS K-ZOO


PRESENTS


“SLAM NIGHT AT THE FIGHTS”

SATURDAY
MARCH 3, 2007


C.E.C. GYM (OLD CENTRAL H.S.)
714 SOUTH WESTNEDGE
KALAMAZOO, MICHIGAN


AMATEUR BOXING AT ITS BEST


SLAM POETRY COMPETITION
DURING INTERMISSION


TICKETS: $10.00 ADMISSION
(COMPETING POETS ARE FREE)
DOORS OPEN AT: 7:00 PM
FIGHTS START AT: 7:30 PM


Sanctioned by USA Boxing, Inc.

Students Talking about Books

I'm not sure if this will work or not. I'm having trouble editing the eduactivism website, so I'm hoping the pasted link will work here.

Students Talking about Books: Mules and Men Edition

P.S. I got the mp3 to work on my Encouraging Student Activism website now. You can go at it either way.

It's not really a podcast, though. I need to set it up so someone could subscribe to it.

If I was a professor, I'd be on the Wall of Shame too

I took a political compass quiz at Political Compass. I already knew the outcome before I saw it. Most of these quizzes are pretty simplistic. More importantly, they measure ideology over real-life decision making. However, this one is better than most.

For some reason, the graph does not display as a gif, so I have to reproduce it here differently:

My score:
Your political compass
Economic: Left/Right: -7.63

Social: Libertarian/Authoritarian: -7.54

Where economic scores are negative on the left and positive on the right, and social scores are negative for libertarian and positive for authoritarian.

As a grad student, I am sure I am below the radar of the College Republicans, or else I might make their Wall of Shame, as our colleague has. (See Western Herald article below.)

College Republicans have caused a stir on campus with their Hall of Shame

I am interested in an instructor's positioning in the classroom. I think most people would advocate for instructor neutrality in the classroom. A teacher is in a position of power and students might feel the need to mirror his politics. While I agree that teachers should not be in the business of creating political clones (something the Right wing fears is happening in American universities), I am not convinced that teachers should remain neutral.

Like it or not, classrooms are public spheres and as such, they are charged with the same politics as the world outside. Teacher neutrality is the same as complicity in the hegemonic status quo. Is it not then the duty of instructors to ensure that alternative viewpoints are heard?

In the literature class I am teaching, I am hoping the alternative viewpoints can be found in the texts I select: Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood; Mules and Men; I, Rigoberta: An Indian Woman in Guatemala. These are not my voices, but they are voices outside of the hegemonic power structure. They are voices that students need to hear.

Ultimately, I want my students to gain the ability to think critically, to analyze the world around them. This can be a painful process, especially when their belief systems are similar to the institutions they are analyzing. With pain comes anger. That anger is often misdirected.

I can deal with that, even if that earns me a spot on the Wall of Shame.

Podcasting Brain Freeze

I'm really excited about the potential for podcasting. It's yet another tool I'm considering for my ENGL 4790 students next semester.

In the meantime, I am still considering what I'm going to do for my demo podcast this week. I have student conferences on Monday, so I'm considering interviewing them and putting that on a podcast. I could ask them questions about conferencing in general, the writing process, or texts we've read this semester. Hmm... I'll have to think about that. Alternatively, I could do a solo podcast on an educational technology topic.

All this thinking about podcasting made me decide that I really should be podcasting my poetry shows at Ravenwood. I went to Guitar World to purchase something that would enable me to record directly from the microphone to the computer. I have a cheap little 4 channel Crate PA system and the inputs are somewhat limited. They tried to sell me a $200 solution, which would make sense if I was in a band. However, for spoken word, it seemed overkill. Instead I purchased two cords that split the signal from the mic cable and then divert one of the signals to my computer. For $30 I can now get direct recording to the computer that I can easily turn into a podcast.

I can also use one of the wires to connect the mic directly into my computer when I'm not using the PA system. I guess I can return the WMU microphone I borrowed.

Tying it all together

I need to continue a thought I started in the Nicenet threaded discussion on 5970. Hmmm. I wonder if I can link directly to that thread here:

Conferencing Topic: How is 5970 going?

Here's the deal: I want to incorporate everything I'm learning in 5970 in my classrooms, but I know that it would both be near impossible and possibly stupid to attempt to do so. It's fine in the context of this course to sample all these technologies, because we are participating in meta-education: we are learning technology so that we can use the technology in our own classrooms. It's not like Allen is expecting us to experience each of the technologies we are learning each week. (At least I hope not.) I just don't think it's a good idea to try to do the same thing in our classes.

I think the first thing I would have to do is decide is what I want the central technology of my classroom to be: a class website? student blogs? a class wiki? a threaded discussion site? Then I would have to match up my objectives of the course with the tools that technology offers. If there are gaps, then I would add a new technology to fill in those gaps. No gaps? Then there is no need for a new technology.

The answer to this question is probably different depending on if you are talking about K-6, 7-12, or college. You need different tool sets when you have students most of the day every day versus part of the day every day versus only a few hours a week.

Above all, student buy-in is essential to creating a meaningful experience. If I decide that my students need to both participate actively (daily) in threaded discussion and keep their blog up to date (weekly?), then I need to demonstrate how those two activities are accomplishing two very different tasks. If I can't demonstrate this, then I should seriously considering using one technology and not the other.

Finally, I think it is important to get student feedback throughout the semester. If a project isn't working, there is nothing wrong with altering the project, dropping the project, or melding the project with another project.

A bit of shameless self-promotion

Poets Anonymous K-Zoo is proud to present:


An Evening with Buddy Wakefield

Sunday, February 25th, 2007

8:00-10:00 PM

Ravenwood Coffee

773 W Michigan Ave
Kalamazoo, MI 49007
(269) 341-4200

$5; All Ages Welcome

Open mic poetry before and after Buddy’s performance


BUDDY WAKEFIELD is the two-time Individual World Poetry Slam Champion featured on NPR, the BBC, HBO’s Def Poetry Jam, and most recently signed to Strange Famous Records.

For more info, contact:

Todd Bannon: tabannon@gmail.com

Poets Anonymous K-Zoo: http://www.pakzoo.org/

Buddy Wakefield: www.buddywakefield.com