No Rest For The Weary

Starting a podcast…

Clearly, as the rate of posts here indicates, I’ve been pretty busy this semester.  Both of my classes this semester were courses I’ve taught before, but I had two of each for a total of four courses, with a combined 115 students.  Don’t get me wrong, it went fine and all of my grades were turned in on time this past Tuesday, but it got pretty busy, especially after Spring Break.

Good thing I’m off for Summer Vacation now, right?  Wrong!  In all honesty, I’m kinda excited because I’ll be teaching two classes in the online setting for the first time.  It’s new territory for me, as I’ve never taught a class in this way before, let alone two, so the learning curve could get the best of me, but I’m hopeful I can push them across the finish line by the time the classes are over in July.

Basically, back in the Fall, some of my students asked if I could teach Pathophysiology over the Summer semester.  It’s a class I’d taught before, but this time, it would be out of a different department and with a different course number and a different textbook, so it isn’t exactly the same (but, effectively, it’s the same class).  I was interested in doing it anyway, but the rub was that I’d have to do it in the online setting.  In some ways, it was “win/win” because I could still be flexible with staying home over the Summer with Meg, but I’d also get to keep busy and try something new with my courses, some things I could potentially wrap back around into my lectures for the Fall.  As of today, I’ve got 17 people enrolled in that class.

Earlier this semester, I was having conversations with “The Powers That Be” on campus about how many people are in my A&P courses (hint: it’s a lot) and they mentioned how it would be nice to get a fully online version of A&P I built to help transition students from the career center setting in nearby counties over to our nursing program.  This online A&P course could be completed by interested students and, assuming it was completed along with other prerequisites, they could enroll in our nursing program without having set foot on our campus before.

This presented a different challenge, as there’s a laboratory component involved.  I think I’ve solved that issue with a distance learning laboratory kit that we’ve contracted out from a supplier, but it’ll be interesting to see how the lab side of things works out compared with what I normally do during the Fall and Spring semesters.

Right now, I’ve got 15 people enrolled in that class, as well.

The thing I’m working on right now (aside from posting this…) is recording all of my lectures and getting them hosted on YouTube.  There are multiple ways to handle an online class and it really depends on a). the strengths (or weaknesses) of the instructor and b). what kind of material is being discussed in said lecture.  In my case, I’m no stranger to technology, so I picked up a USB microphone for $20 and grabbed Brooke’s sewing lamp from home in order to create a make-shift recording studio.  I’m also using Screencastify,  software built in to Chrome that lets me insert my voice and video in one of the four corners of my lecture slides and records the tab in Chrome into a video format stored on Google Drive.  From there, I can download it and edit it (to a very limited degree…), and then post it to YouTube in a Private listing so I don’t have everyone on the planet viewing it (and getting lovely YouTube comments about how little hair I have).

I’ve got hours of this…hours, I tell you…

Thus far, the lecturing has been working pretty well, I think.  I’m recording each lecture in 30-40 minute chunks and I started with A&P I material, as that’s what I’ve most recently done and, consequently, can get more “comfortable with the camera” as I have more confidence with those lectures.  I’ll get started on recording my Pathophysiology lectures next week, but after I get done with those, I’ve still got quite a few lecture slides to write in order to finish out the semester.

Luckily, Meg still has another week of school…  I’ve got my work cut out for me…

Upcoming Movies

The last two years have yielded something of a famine with regards to summer movies I’m excited to see.  To be fair, the last two years have also encompassed this little thing called “fatherhood,” so I haven’t exactly had the time or money to go see as many movies as I used to.  That, and living in Iowa away from my usual movie buddy made it difficult to get to see the flicks I wanted to check out.

To be fair, last year especially didn’t really have much I was excited to see.  Within the realm of comic book features, movies like Thor, Captain America and Green Lantern didn’t really entice me to find someone to go to the theater with.  I caught most of these movies, and others, through Netflix rentals in the Fall and Spring and I don’t really think I missed all that much.

That said, now that we’ve made our triumphant return to St. Louis, I thought it best to outline the movies I’m excited to go see this Summer, provided The Wife (…and Josh’s wife…) will allow such things…  🙂

  • The Avengers (May 4, 2012) – This one is gonna rake in tons of cash, if only for the slate of actors they’ve got lined up.  Just about everyone is in this movie and it promises to blow up everything in sight.  Definitely a great way to kick off the summer blockbuster season.
  • Men In Black III (May 25, 2012) – To be honest, I don’t like the idea of effectively replacing Tommy Lee Jones with Josh Brolin. Then again, if you wanted a young looking Tommy Lee Jones, you could do worse than Josh Brolin.  I loved the first movie, but didn’t particularly care for the second one.  We’ll see how this one turns out, I guess, but I’ll probably end up seeing it.
  • Prometheus (June 1, 2012) – Billed as a loose prequel to the Alien franchise, Ridley Scott returns to sci-fi horror after a long absence.  This one probably won’t bring in the bucks as the others on this list, but I expect it’ll still be pretty awesome.
  • The Amazing Spider-Man (July 3, 2012) – I like me some Spider-man, and this re-boot takes the story back to the beginning with Andrew Garfield as Peter Parker and Emma Stone as Gwen Stacy.  When I heard those two names announced, I was a bit apprehensive, but Stone’s good in just about anything she’s in and Garfield was good in The Social Network, so I’ll cut him some slack.  That, and at least in the clips I’ve seen, he seems to pull off the “wit” of the character a bit more convincingly than Tobey Maguire did.  Call me “optimistic” on this one.
  • The Dark Knight Rises (July 20, 2012) – Uh.  I don’t need to write anything here really.  While Batman Begins was a great movie, The Dark Knight practically redefined what a “comic book movie” could be.  I will be shocked if this movie is anything less than stellar.
  • Total Recall (August 3, 2012) – To be honest, I haven’t seen the Schwarzenegger version in quite awhile, but the trailer for this one, this time with Colin Farrell, could be good.  The effects look pretty sweet and it’s got a good slate of actors.  My only concern is that Len Wiseman is directing it, mostly known for the Underworld franchise, so while I’m hopeful this movie turns out to be good, I won’t be too surprised if it’s “middling,” at best.
  • The Bourne Legacy (August 3, 2012) – So, as I was compiling this list, I saw this movie coming up.  I’d heard they were continuing the franchise without Matt Damon, but didn’t realize it was coming up already.  Jeremy Renner will be carrying on as a new character, though some old favorites from the previous movies will show up, too (Renner is also in The Avengers, earlier in the summer, so he’s packing quite a payday this year).  It’s a strong series of movies, so as long as they stick with the fiction, it’ll probably be alright.  There’s a bit of concern, though, as Paul Greengrass isn’t directing these (he did the previous three), but it is being directed by the guy that was involved with writing the earlier movies, so at least there’s some pedigree there.  Again, I’m hopeful for this one.