I’ve lost track of the weeks we’ve missed and even what week I’m supposed to be writing about, so this is a bit of a catch up.

University of Guadalajara site visit:   We just got back from an intensely short visit to the University of Guadalajara, where we visited a couple of the U of G campuses in the city as well as 2 of their regional campuses about an hour outside of the city.  The U of G is hugely impressive and everyone we met seemed so incredibly committed.  Quite honestly, the BC post secondary sector could learn a lot from U of G, but that is a topic for another post.  I was impressed with how, as a public (free)  university that functions as system of 12 campuses it seemed to be so integrated into the social, economic, and community fabric.  Importantly student access at U of G means so much more than simply putting courses online.

This project requires putting together an awesome team as soon as possible, so most of my energy is focussed on that now.

Open textbooks:  As we continue to roll along with our open textbooks, we are realizing that there may actually be a need for a peer review process built into our endeavours.  We’ve been making sure to pilot the open textbooks with students before releasing, but it feels like there is a step missing.

Innovative Classroom:  The visit to the impressive University of Guadalajara learning spaces underlined the need to update our classroom technology, so if we are feeling good about our pilot setup we may try and sneak a couple more upgrades this year.

Things that caught my attention:  

It looks like I spent my time favouriting things of the more frivolous variety.

1.  Obviously dating myself, but I really chuckled reading the piece about Being a Winona in a World of Gwyneths . Along the same lines, Why I can’t stop reading Mormon housewife blogs touched a nerve.

2.  Love this house that plays music.

3.  For the instructional designers among us, I thought this graphic was a good explanation of what the job involves.