[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RuEFdfZgM4o[/embed] I put together a short video highlighting some of the intriguing concepts in the book Metaphors We Live By by George Lakoff and Mark Johnson. They offer up a wealth of insights, and I'll be thinking about the impact of this new perspective for a while. Metaphors… View More

One practice that I find useful for organization and planning is sketch journaling. The Hobonichi Techo is my favorite tool for this as the paper is thin but takes ink and watercolor well. Here are a few ways that I like to use it. … View More

For my educational tech class, we're using Flipgrid, which is a system for shared student video responses in a class. For the first one, I felt the pressure to be simultaneously well-lit, friendly, thoughtful, erudite, and brief. I can see the value but also the challenges with the… View More

The metaphors we use to talk about things are powerful. For example, when talking about the internet lately the "flow of information" is seen as a given. It's like drinking from a firehose. We're engulfed. We're drowning in it. What if instead information online were a river, continuously available to carry us where we need to go, there to quench our thirst for knowledge, and distract us with cool waters for as long as we want to dip… View More

Putting together a short annotated bibliography on metaphors about technology and finding that the articles range from "the metaphors we use shape our conceptions of inventing and implementing technology" to "sometimes we think computers are like people and get irritated that they are so withholding" to "existing in the global cognisphere means that we have given up our agency as individual entities". There seems to be some healthy… View More

Because technology is by its nature abstract, the way that we think about these abstractions has a direct impact on how it is created and implemented. I created this video to walk through how metaphors impact technology on the levels of students, teachers, and in the big picture. Hopefully, this will provide some food for… View More

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Some tasks we do so often that it's worth taking a few minutes or hours to streamline the activity, saving minutes and hours down the line. During my work day, I generally live in Terra Dotta, the online software often used for study abroad management. Terra Dotta is powerful but sometimes navigating between sections of the system is a bit slower than I'd like, so it's a bright opportunity for streamlining. In particular, three… View More

Previously, I outlined how to use AutoHotKey (AHK) to speed up access to searches in the study abroad software Terra Dotta, and speed up various other functions. AHK is only available for PC, but luckily it turns out that we can use Keyboard Maestro to replicate the same functions. First, the sad news is that Keyboard Maestro isn't a free option like AHK. Initially, I tried… View More

This week I decided to get serious with studying Japanese and started with Wanikani, an online system for learning kanji. Using a system of mnemonics and spaced repetition software (SRS) WK is designed to help you learn radicals, kanji, and compounds. First, you cram the new material into your brain, and then a few hours later WK will quiz you. Do well, and it'll extend the time until it asks you again. Miss one, and you'll see it again… View More