Reading Time: 6 minutes
The semester started last week and I have been building out my course materials in our online learning management system (LMS). Our university uses Blackboard but I expect that users of Thomson Reuter’s TWEN or Blackboard’s competitor, Canvas, have been going through a similar experience. I’ve been surprised how much duplication
Reading Time: 13 minutes
I cancelled Bloomberg Law. It was an agonizing decision-making process. The decision itself was not hard. If anything, it was obvious and overdue. That tension, of having an obvious decision that still needs to be teased out to its full extent, was a professional challenge. It has been a long time
My immersion in law school life continues. All faculty are asked to proctor a final exam so I had that experience. The room slowly filled with laptops and piles of books and notes and outlines, sometimes supplemented with scratch paper. The laptops are a requirement for the exam. But I was still struck by the
Reading Time: 7 minutes
My wife and I are house hunting. We are hoping it will be our last move, as we have moved a few times already, always because my desire for challenging work took us to new places. It has meant identifying and engaging a number of specialists—a realtor, a lawyer, a painter,
Reading Time: 2 minutes
This is the first Christmas in 6 years that all of my family will be in North America. The first Christmas my parents have bothered to get a tree to decorate, since it didn’t feel like much of a celebration with my brother held hostage in Russia. I’ve been reflecting on
Reading Time: 5 minutes
I have departed X as a social space like so many others. You will still find my handle on there but it’s not somewhere I linger. My brother’s ordeal in Russia meant I used that account for a lot of public advocacy and I’m worried that, if I yield it, it
Reading Time: 11 minutes
Let us take a walk into the unknown. I have spent most of the last year thinking about how legal scholarship is promoted and connected. Not so much from the perspective of the librarian assisting faculty, but from the perspective of the librarian or lecturer who is promoting their own scholarship.
Reading Time: 5 minutes
I am leaning increasingly on a philosophy of slow news. It’s a pretty big change for me, because I used to enjoy getting information from multiple media, especially the radio. NPR and PRI podcasts used to be a staple. But over time, I have found audio and video takes a
Reading Time: 7 minutes
One of the things I enjoy in life is when two things I’m interested in converge. I am finding that with teaching, as I read up on how to do it better. One topic—mindset—grabbed my attention because it’s such a common thing to consider in management too. I had always thought
Reading Time: 5 minutes
I have been on Mastodon for nearly two years. It has been interesting learning the new culture. I tend to take people at face value there so, when someone asked why their posts weren’t gaining engagement, I responded with some suggestions. It wasn’t what they wanted to hear.
Here or There
Reading Time: 10 minutes
I have been unhappily surprised by the apparent lack of usage data available to academic law libraries. After talking to some folks at the MAALL annual meeting, my own experience seems to be a common one. While our colleagues in other law library contexts may have rich usage data, legal
Reading Time: 7 minutes
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. One of the things I’ve been looking forward to in my new role is teaching. The calendar has rolled around and I was asked to teach next fall, which is really exciting. I’ll be teaching a course on law
Reading Time: 7 minutes
I am sensing a disturbance in the Force. Where things like Google alerts used to be reliable sources of news, their reliance on deteriorating search is becoming visible. Websites are also starting to pull their RSS feeds in favor of emailed newsletters. For every information action, a reaction. I have
Reading Time: 9 minutes
I got a new driver’s license. It is my ninth one, as I’ve moved around a bit and all the jurisdictions in which I’ve lived have required you to get a new one. The visit to the Department of Motor Vehicles wasn’t too bad. You can imagine, though, that not everyone
Reading Time: 4 minutes
I have been fiddling with my multi-factor authentication, probably more than I should. I had been using Duo Mobile on Android. Then my workplace required me to add the Akamai app because they use Akamai. I wrote about this a few months ago, because I had been playing with the
Reading Time: 7 minutes
I attended a conference focused on online learning. I’ve been making a push to firm up my understanding about teaching and this was an accelerator. It was noted more than once how dissonant it was to have a conference about online learning where the only way to attend was in-person. The