Attempts to mediate the experience of  debate are troubling. They are not troubling in the good way of troubling that can be appreciated – creation of static in a clear picture, the presentation of uncertainty as a good, the celebration of questioning over answering. The trouble that these mediations present is one of too clear…

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There’s a lot of excitement and interest in flipping the classroom – the idea that the class time should be used for practice in groups and homework should be where the lecture lives, on digital video – but what does flipping the classroom do for students and teachers? The biggest barrier to education in any…

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Thinking about the university and how silly it is that we maintain the arrangement of course to professor to knowledge centered around terms and ideas that are generated independently from anyone involved in the course. Sometimes a professor says to herself, “It would be really great if we offered a course on X.” And she…

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As a side note, and on the side here, I really like how I’ve figured out how to embed what I’m currently listening to into the blogposts. It is sort of a throwback to my LiveJournal days of 2001, 2002, where I used to post koans and various poems and commentary to it and treated…

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The last Motion Debate in New York city was the first to include an expert on the topic as a speaker. This was really wonderful in terms of giving the audience a great perspective from a professional researcher and advocate on the topic. But it throws into question the idea of the role of debate…

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It’s really snowing out there. Good way to start the term as I have been feeling unrested and unready for another semester. Thinking that I’ll try to do the daily post again just to kick start what I’m thinking, feeling, and how I’m approaching things. Thought this soundtrack would be a good way to start…

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If you don’t follow me on Snapchat you are missing out. Today is a very important anniversary! Snapspecs Vending Machines in the pop-up shop on 5th avenue in Manhattan, 2017. Here we have the birthplace of my much loved Snap spectacles which I use pretty much every day to record the various places that I…

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This is a bit of an unusual post but I felt like writing down a bunch of memories I had about my grandfather, pictured with me here in 2014. He passed away a few days ago after a nice, long life. I figure this might be relevant in so much as it could be a…

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Thanks to the suggestion of my public speaking students and my own curiosity, I’m going to vlog most of NCA this year in Dallas. You can follow the exploits either here or on my YouTube channel. There should be a new video every night! I hope to put it together and get it uploading just…

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Q: Why so cranky/are you depressed/mentally ill? The etymology of crank is a good one – the “crazy person” is related to the person who is angry, upset, sad, unsatisfied, or hysterical (women 99% of the writings say). I’ll take the crazy but not the mentally ill – it’s a very old and sad tactic…

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