Hard to believe two days almost ticked by with no new words at blog. 
See, the new online term (Spring II) started on Monday, and I’m experimenting
with a whole lot more writing in that forum.  Trouble is, it’s
private.  Behind closed portals.  I could share my password (and I’m
tempted; oh! how I’m tempted), but then an imposter could misrepresent me, variegate
my teacherly persona.  Who would that be good for?

Been busy as heck with teaching.  EN106ers are pouring over Postman and
Agre.  Our next essay is a kind of strange staged,
imagined dialogue between Postman, Agre and you (the person writing the
essay).  We’re reading Welcome
to the Always-On World, holding it up alongside Postman’s middle-late
chapters, and looking for ways to laceweavemesh the texts.  Today, students
suggested interests in disruptive technology (God forbid, cell phones in
church!), social networks (best friends online) and time-squeeze efficiency
models brought on by mobile gadgets.  All of these themes bubble and churn
in Agre and Postman.  

Feeling philanthropic, I picked up a few other volunteer teaching assignments this week, covering
for a certain blogger you might know who’s been on interviews lately.  Job
interviews, not the talk show circuit (I won’t do it; I won’t attempt the
satire).  So I picked up his section of LS301 this afternoon: one hour and
fifteen minutes of really incredible student-lead discussion on the Childhood
chapter from Building a Bridge to the 18th Century. We talked over the
metaphors for childhood as a social construction: tabula rasa, plant organism
and market.  Good stuff.  The most interesting moments came during one
student’s explanation of a local program called  Exchange City which is
like an urban simulation field trip for fifth graders where they effectively act
like laborious adults.  Others in the class had been through this
program.  Turns out one of the students in LS301 was once assigned to the
assembly line–a factory job making checkbook covers–when she went to Exchange
City in fifth grade. Now she aims to be a labor activist who lobbies for
pay-production fairness.  

Enough.  I agreed to cover two other classes for Dr. Job-Marketeer
tomorrow morning at eight and nine, and I’m not accustomed to coursing my Friday
morning blood flow to teaching pace by eight o’clock.  So I’ll trick System
with a jug of coffee.  Gonna watch the last few splits of March Madness
then hit the hay.