“You made history enjoyable, which let me tell you is no easy task!” This particular quotation came from one of my undergraduate students last semester who wrote this in the comment field of our end-of-semester course evaluation form. I’ve been reflecting on it for a couple of weeks now, because over the past few years…
Category: Posts
Watching Gustav, Remembering Katrina
Over the weekend the American news media was as focused on Hurricane Gustav as it was on the Republican National Convention. Naturally there were numerous comparisons between the response to Gustav and the non-response to Katrina almost exactly three years ago. These reminders of the disaster that was Katrina have brought lots of people to…
The New Media Conventions
More than any other national political convention before it (and presumably the upcoming Republican National Convention won’t be much different), the just completed Democratic National Convention was the first full on new media convention. The speeches from the podium were broadcast live online with what seemed like some very powerful bandwidth, bloggers were everywhere, clips…
Edwired Goes Analog
When I arrived on campus last week to get ready for the semester, I found a book in my mailbox called Discovering Arguments. An Introduction to Critical Thinking and Writing With Readings by William Palmer (Pearson, 2008). When I checked the index to see if my name might appear, lo and behold, there I was….